CLAYTON — Two activists who participated in a pro-Palestine protest last spring at Washington University now face charges, the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney’s office said Wednesday.

Those charged include Jill Stein, the presidential nominee of the Green Party in 2024, who is accused of hitting a police officer with a bicycle and kicking him at the protest. Stein, 74, was charged Friday with first-degree trespass and fourth-degree assault.

In charging documents, Washington University police said demonstrators were given numerous warnings to leave the university’s private campus. Officers moved in for arrests around 8 p.m. Court documents alleged Stein interlocked her arms with other demonstrators and refused to leave.

In an interview with the Post-Dispatch just days after the protest, Stein disputed accounts that she struck an officer.

“While I was being assaulted with a bicycle, one of the police bent down and picked up my foot in order to try to further destabilize me into falling backwards,” Stein said. “And I wiggled out of his grip, you know, in an effort not to fall back on my head.”

  • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Alaska got rid of First Past The Post voting and now use Ranked Choice. What excuse does your state representatives have to not pass this critical reform?

    So those unrepresented by their options in the voting booth can make and/or vote for outside the two party system without a spoiler effect.

    So we can have democracy.