A Tale of Two Crimes, Part I
17th October 2023
Colinford Mattis went to Princeton University; Urooj Rahman went to Fordham. They earned their law degrees from NYU in 2018 and 2019, respectively, by which time they were saturated in the combustible self-righteousness of left-wing politics.
A spark arrived on May 30, 2020, when the George Floyd riots reached New York. Mattis and Rahman were angry: Rahman recorded herself opining that “all the police stations” and “probably all the courts” need to be burned down and “the only way they hear us is through violence.” She never defined “they” and never explained why she and Mattis were appropriate messengers. Their message was never particularly clear, though the “raised fist” T-shirt depicted in Rahman’s mugshot tells you what you need to know.
What was clear, however, was that Mattis and Rahman were bent on destroying a symbol of law and order. Around 1 a.m., Mattis drove a minivan toward an NYPD precinct in Brooklyn while Rahman sat in the passenger seat, armed with two Molotov cocktails. As they approached, Mattis parked the van, and Rahman exited the passenger side, ignited the incendiary, and threw the burning concoction through the window of a parked police van in the vicinity of other rioters. They fled but were arrested shortly thereafter. Police found another Molotov cocktail and precursor materials, indicating that Mattis and Rahman planned to do it again.
They were charged in a seven-count indictment. When charges were filed, a senior FBI official promised that “the consequences for conducting this alleged attack…will be severe.” Simultaneously, the NYPD’s police commissioner was “confident that the severest penalties under the law [would] be sought.” These claims were justified—one count of the indictment carried a 30-year minimum sentence.
But it never happened. Instead, Mattis and Rahman were sentenced to 12 and 15 months’ imprisonment respectively. How did this happen?