In a remarkable turn of events, all charges have been dropped against Denver anti-racist activists Lillian House, Joel Northam, Eliza Lucero and Terrance Roberts. In September 2020 they were arrested in a dramatic police raid, jailed, and hit with dozens of false charges, including kidnapping police officers.
What made them the target of local police and state authorities? House, Northam, Lucero and Roberts had played a leading role in organizing a series of mass peaceful demonstrations calling for justice over the 2019 police killing of unarmed 23-year-old Black man Elijah McClain.
If found guilty, they would have been facing up to 48 years in prison – among the highest charges for peaceful political protest in recent history. Earlier this month, a Colorado grand jury indicted the three police officers and two paramedics involved in Elijah McClain’s murder, following two years of protest.
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Eugene Puryear is a longtime journalist and community organizer currently-based in New York City. Eugene helped to organize a number of the large-scale demonstrations that took place against the continuing U.S. war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, he was a key leader In the struggle to free the Jena Six in 2007, and a founder of the anti-gentrification group Justice First, the Jobs Not Jails coalition, DC Ferguson Movement and Stop Police Terror Project-D.C. Puryear is the author of the book Shackled and Chained: Mass Incarceration in Capitalist America, and spent five years in radio prior to helping found BT News.
