Not Guilty! Not Guilty! Not Guilty!

Gabby was acquitted last week ago (1/8/13) on charges stemming from an incident on January 25th, 2012 outside City Council chambers. She was arrested for obstructing, delaying and/or resisting police officers as they attempted to enter the south stairwell to the City Council Chamber’s balcony. As tweeted by Naedesu a bit after the verdict came down…

Holy fleurking shnit!!! Verdict in Gabby’s trial already in. Jurors deemed it unlawful arrest. NOT GUILTY!!!!!!!!!

On January 25th, 2012 the City Council was holding hearings about layoffs and budget cuts due to the State’s withdrawal of redevelopment money from Oakland’s coffers; a number of Occupy Oakland peeps went to the meeting in support of city workers and those to be affected by cuts.

The trial based on her January 25th arrest lasted two days, involved 13 jurors, a judge who undoubtedly had more serious cases on his docket, court staff, a prosecutor and two policeman who, despite Oakland’s so-called crisis of police staffing, spent the better part of their day either ~~testifying~~ making unsubstantiated allegations or waiting to ~~testify~~ support the making of unsubstantiated allegations.

Like the 400 arrested on J28, the Ice Cream III, Chris Moreland and many, many more, this is yet another example of a police department and a district attorney run amok and in full vendetta mode. From the very start of the trial the prosecutor missed no opportunity to mention “Occupy Oakland”, “chanting”, “disruption” and “FTP.” He kept returning to the horrifying chaos he suggested was going on inside City Council, despite the fact that it had nothing per se to do with the arrest — which happened outside of the chambers. The prosecutor even went so far as to inquire as to whether Gabby’s witness “slept at the camp.” after she had had the temerity to testify that she had seen Gabby being dragged by her hair down three flights of City Hall’s steps.

Apparently the jury wasn’t buying the guilt by virtue of being associated with Occupy Oakland gambit, nor it seems did they believe what the police had to say about Gabby’s actions before, during and after her arrest. For, as the first tweet I saw about it reported