Two Brooklyn lawyers and one Upstate New York woman were indicted Friday on federal explosives and arson charges for tossing Molotov cocktails at NYPD vehicles during the George Floyd riots in New York City in late May.
Samantha Shader, 27, from Catskills, has been accused of throwing a improvised explosive device at an NYPD vehicle occupied by four officers on May 30, according to the New York Post.
Prosecutors added that Shader bit one of the officer's legs when she was being arrested.
It was around this same time that Urooj Rahman, 31, and Colinford Mattis, 32, both of whom are lawyers, allegedly threw Molotov cocktails at an empty police vehicle in Brooklyn.
All three of them face life in prison on the seven-count indictments, charging each one with the use of explosives, use of explosives to commit a felony, arson, use of a destructive device, arson conspiracy, civil disorder, and creating and possessing a destructive device.
“Such criminal acts should never be confused with legitimate protest,” United States Attorney Richard Donoghue said in a statement. “Those who carry out attacks on NYPD officers or vehicles are not protesters, they are criminals, and they will be treated as such.”
No officers were injured by the IEDs. Shader's ignited bottle did not go off, but the explosive Rahman and Mattis tossed did ignite and set the unoccupied police vehicle ablaze, prosecutors said.
Shader's actions were caught on camera, and records show that she had been arrested in 11 different states leading up to the event.
Shader was busted early last year for interfering with a police officer in Connecticut, and she was convicted a few years before for possession of a controlled substance in Oklahoma.
Both Rahman and Mattis have been described as humble Brooklynites who worked their way through the ranks to attend prestigious law schools and had promising careers.
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