Released from Rikers prison after serving 58 days, Occupy
activist Cecily McMillan discusses prisons, policing and why she'll keep
protesting.
Cecily McMillan would rather not be famous. Not for the dubious honor
of receiving the most serious sentence among thousands of Occupy Wall
Street activists arrested over the course of the movement.
McMillan was released from Rikers Island after 58 days. She'd been
sentenced to 90 days for felony second-degree assault for elbowing a
police officer, Grantley Bovell, who was attempting to arrest her as
Zuccotti Park was cleared on March 17, 2012,
but got out early on July 2 for good behavior. She still faces five
years of probation and a life with a felony record if her appeal, which
is still going forward, is unsuccessful.
At trial, McMillan argued that she accidentally struck the officer
after he grabbed her breast, bruising her. She'd previously refused to
take a plea deal that would still have resulted in her pleading guilty
to a felony. The jury found her guilty - though later nine of the 12 jurors issued a call for leniency in sentencing.
Video of McMillan suffering an apparent seizure after her arrest,
while officers looked on and did nothing, was not allowed at trial, nor
was evidence of other accusations of brutality against Officer Bovell.
Despite the jurors and several members of the New York City Council
calling for McMillan not to serve prison time, the judge, Ronald
Zweibel, remanded her to Rikers immediately after her conviction,
rejecting her lawyer's request for bail. "A civilized society must not
allow an assault to be committed under the guise of civil disobedience,"
Zweibel said at her sentencing.
Upon her release, McMillan brought to the press a statement from the women of Rikers that she met while insid
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