Margaret Aislinn Channon, 26, received a five-year prison sentence for setting police cars on fire during a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020. From The Seattle Times:
Margaret Aislinn Channon was arrested June 11, 2020, after an investigation by federal agents and Seattle police, who identified her from video showing an individual in distinctive clothing with tattoos on her hands setting fire to the vehicles.During the sentencing, U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour told Channon that her conduct had done “tremendous damage to Black Lives Matter in Seattle.”Channon was also shown breaking into downtown businesses and stealing clothing and other items. According to court documents, she admitted smashing the window at a Verizon store and entering a sandwich shop and destroying the electronic cash register.“The right to protest, gather, and call out injustices is one of the dearest and most important rights we enjoy in the United States,” said U.S. Attorney Nick Brown. “Indeed, our democracy depends on both exercising and protecting these rights. But Ms. Channon’s conduct was itself an attack on democracy.”Brown said Channon “used the cover of lawful protests to carry out dangerous and destructive acts, risking the safety of everyone around her and undermining the important messages voiced by others.”
The videos and photos showed Channon using an aerosol can and a lighter to incinerate the police cars.
Federal prosecutors wrote in their sentencing documents that she endangered the lives of the people around the cars.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg wrote: “Hundreds of people were standing in the vicinity of the police cars that Channon burned, some only a few feet away. All of them were in harm’s way if one of the vehicles had exploded.”
Channon took responsibility for her actions and apologized. The Tacoma Tribune reported:
“Black Lives Matter is an organization with leadership that does not condone illegal activity,” Channon wrote. “I apologize to the many workers and activists — who have given decades of their lives to building a countermeasure to police violence — that did not want to see fire in June of 2020.”Channon’s attorneys wrote that her decisions were a “seriously misguided attempt to effect positive change.” The attorneys included a photo that they said showed her protesting peacefully in downtown Seattle the day before she set fire to the police cars.
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