Activist faces 18 felony counts for threatening Bakersfield City Council

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-13/activist-faces-18-
felonies-for-threats-to-city-council-during-meeting

A Kern County activist is facing years in jail after authorities charged 
her with 18 felony counts for allegedly making terrorist threats against 
the Bakersfield City Council, the latest civic body to be roiled by unrest 
amid calls for a cease-fire in Gaza.

Riddhi Patel, 28, who grew up in Bakersfield and works as the economic 
development coordinator for a local nonprofit, was arrested after public 
statements she made this week on the topic of a cease-fire and on metal 
detectors at City Hall.

Among her comments, Patel said the council members were such “horrible 
human beings” that “Jesus probably would have killed you himself.” Later, 
she expressed hope that oppressed people might “bring the guillotine.” She 
concluded her public statements by saying: “We’ll see you at your house. 
We’ll murder you.”

In response, Mayor Karen Goh at first calmly called for the next speaker 
to come to the lectern, and then paused and said: “Ms. Patel, that was a 
threat, what you said at the end. So the officers are going to escort you 
out and take care of that.”

On Friday, Patel appeared in court and tearfully pleaded not guilty. 
Neither she nor her representatives could be reached for comment.

Video from the Bakersfield City Council chambers quickly went viral, 
zipping across X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok and picked up by Fox News 
and newspapers in India.

The mayor declined to comment, telling a local television station that 
“since the incident is under investigation, it’s not appropriate for me to 
offer comments.”

Vice Mayor Andrae Gonzales, however, told KGET that the exchange was 
“deeply concerning” and “completely inappropriate.” “The city can’t 
function during a public council meeting if we’re being continuously 
disrupted,” he said.

Patel’s comments came as activists have been lobbying the City Council 
about both a resolution calling for an Israeli cease-fire in Gaza and 
about increased security measures and rules around public speaking at 
council meetings.

Israel launched its offensive against Hamas in Gaza in retaliation for an 
Oct. 7 cross-border attack that officials say killed about 1,200 people. 
The war has dragged on for nearly six months and killed more than 32,000 
Palestinians, the majority of them women and children.

Patel, wearing a colorful dress and speaking calmly, addressed both issues 
during the meeting’s public comment period.

In calling for a cease-fire, she said she expected that council members 
would not support it because they were “horrible human beings and Jesus 
probably would have killed you himself.”

She added that council members didn’t care about oppression in Gaza 
because “you don’t care about oppression occurring here” and then listed a 
number of problems in Kern County, including poor wages and waves of 
evictions.

She referenced an Indian holiday, Chaitra Navratri, and said that some in 
“the global south” believe in “violent revolution against their 
oppressors. I hope one day somebody brings the guillotine and kills all 
you mother—-.”

After those comments, Mayor Goh said: “Thank you.” Then she called for the 
next speaker.

The United Liberation Front, the local group calling for a cease-fire, 
publicly condemned Patel’s comments later that night. “It does not 
represent those of us in the community who continue to show up and 
exercise our civic duty.”

Fifteen minutes later, Patel again rose from her seat in the audience to 
address the council on a second issue involving metal detectors and 
increased security at City Hall, which she and others believe could stifle 
public participation. The issue has been a hot-button one in Bakersfield 
for years; in 2021 groups including the ACLU of Southern California 
protested the council’s “rules of public decorum” that were instituted 
during Black Lives Matter protests to place some limits on public 
speakers. The groups called the rules “overbroad” and said they could 
violate the 1st Amendment.

Patel, whose public bio says she has a degree in neuroscience and enjoys 
“holding elected officials accountable” as well as movies, sports and time 
outdoors with her family and friends, accused the council of trying to 
criminalize members of the public who protest their policies.

“You guys wanna criminalize … with metal detectors,” she said. “We’ll see 
you at your house. We’ll murder you.”

No one on the council appeared to react, and Patel returned to her seat 
before police removed her.

The Kern County district attorney could not be reached for comment but in 
a statement to Bakersfield.Com said that charges against Patel include 10 
counts of threatening with the intent to terrorize a public official: five 
City Council members, the mayor, the city clerk, the assistant city clerk, 
the city attorney and the city manager.

She also faces eight counts of threatening specific public officials. That 
includes all but two of those at the meeting. The D.A. told 
Bakersfield.Com that Councilmembers Bob Smith and Eric Arias “are not 
considered victims because they did not feel threatened.”


-- 
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
stupid people won't be offended.

Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem.  It has none.

No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.  
Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden 
fiasco, President Trump.  

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
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President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed 
dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.