We’ve seen a lot of wild actions from the pro-Hamas crew.
But even by their standards, the actions employed by a woman at a Bakersfield, California, city council meeting were particularly unhinged. Riddhi Patel (who some media said identified as “non-binary”) started off slow, saying she was there to push for a ceasefire resolution. She also spoke about some other issues. But it began to go downhill when she told the council they were “horrible people.” Ordinarily, most people would know it’s not a great idea to threaten people right to their faces at a city council meeting–on video and in front of a microphone. But let’s listen as Patel goes completely off the rails.
After saying they were all ‘horrible human beings,” she said that “Jesus probably would have killed you himself.”
“It’s clear, as someone who has been an organizer for the past couple of years, that none of you care because you guys don’t care about anything happening in Palestine or any other country where oppression occurs, because you do not care about the oppression occurring here.”
Patel went on to talk about people being evicted and said they were “votes.” She then talked about some people in the “global south” believing in “violent revolution against their oppressors, and I hope one day someone brings the guillotine and kills all of you motherf**kers.”
She continued, chastising the council for the increased security at meetings, including metal detectors and an increased police presence because of concerns about safety. Patel seemed to think that was targeting the pro-Hamas folks. And if what she said already wasn’t bad enough, that’s when she got even more direct. She said the council wanted to criminalize “resisting.” She closed with, “You guys want to criminalize us with metal detectors? We’ll see you at your house. We’ll murder you.”
It was amazing that, for a moment after she made that last comment, the meeting seemed to just continue. But only for a moment. Then the mayor, Karen Goh, told Patel that was a threat; the police would be escorting her out and they would deal with it. They did, and the meeting then continued.
So, the activists still didn’t get the ceasefire resolution they keep agitating for. It’s ridiculous because what would it even mean, when it would have no effect on anything?
Patel found out that, at least in this case, she wasn’t just going to get off like so many leftist activists before her.
Officers booked Patel on eight counts of intent to terrorize and eight counts of threatening state officials for a total of 16 felony charges. They remain in police custody on $2 million bond.
Now that’s the way you discourage threats, that’s the proper way to deal with things. And I doubt anyone who watched that would follow in her footsteps with a similar action. It sounds like someone’s finally going to face real consequences for her actions.
