Angell would like “alternatives to traditional justice, such as restorative justice.”
Victims of crime are often people who had limited involvement in the situation beyond voting for pro-crime politicians, but usually did not realize what they were doing. Some wake up after being mugged, but then again there are die-hard believers who walk away from the attack still believing in their own moral inferiority and the criminals’ moral superiority. And some never go away. This is one of those cases.
Jane Angel, a beloved local bakery owner and social justice activist, died Thursday of injuries sustained in a violent robbery, according to close friends. He was 48…
Angell was well known in the Bay Area as a champion of social justice. He was born in 1975 and grew up in suburban Cleveland, Ohio.
He founded Aid and Abate, a social justice program production company. He was also the publisher of Clammer Magazine, a bi-monthly alternative magazine. He was “deeply involved in organizing work for media justice and building a better world,” his friends wrote.
This woman’s role as a left-wing activist is most emphasized here. And even so much so that his family insists that the criminal justice system should not arrest or prosecute the killer.
Her friends wrote that Angel would seek “alternatives to traditional justice, such as restorative justice. Jane’s family and close friends request that the media honor this request and carry her life story forward with the celebration and transparency she aimed to create. Fear, hate and Don’t use his legacy of care and community to fuel a narrative of revenge, or move to throw public resources into policing, incarceration or other state violence that perpetuates the cycle of violence that resulted from this tragedy.”
Be that as it may or not, we do not arrest murderers just for the sake of the victim or the victim’s family. This is not a Muslim country where the killer’s family can pay some blood money to the victim’s family and everything is square. Society has a compelling interest in turning away murderers for their future victims.
But I have to wonder if Jane would really have been on board with giving her killer a pass. Let’s see how he died.
On Monday, Angell was sitting inside her car behind a bank on Webster Street in Oakland when a thief entered the car and took her purse. The robber got into a getaway car that was waiting nearby, police said.
“The victim got out of their vehicle and attempted to retrieve their stolen items from the individual. As the victim struggled for their belongings, they were knocked to the ground and injured,” the Oakland Police Department told KRON4.
The car carrying Angel. The whole incident happened in broad daylight.
After all the social trash, she refuses to give her belongings to the robber and fights back.
Somehow I doubt that if she were alive, she would be more willing to give him a pass.
Most people don’t know what to do in this type of situation until it happens. Personality and even politics can be poor predictors. Unlikely people freeze and unlikely people fight. He fought back. And while she pushed past the ideas that destroyed her life, she did something brave in her last moments.
Her family spokesperson wants to forget all that and embrace the criminals. And that’s a shame because he may have lived like a leftist, but he didn’t die like a leftist.