More results...

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors

Urooj Rahman Blames Alcohol and Trauma on Her Decision to Firebomb a Police Car

Remember Urooj Rahman, the Israel-hating human rights lawyer who brought some palestinian tactics to Brooklyn when she hurled a Molotov cocktail in to a police cruiser while wearing a keffiyeh over her face? 

She is asking for her sentence to be commuted because she had one too many cocktails of the non-Molotov variety. And 911.

A left-wing lawyer who pleaded guilty to firebombing a police cruiser is asking for a commutation of her sentence, pointing to the fact that she was inebriated at the time of the offense and coping with “unprocessed trauma,” according to court filings.

Attorneys for Urooj Rahman argue the self-described human-rights activist was “numb, disassociated, and inebriated” when she threw a Molotov cocktail into a New York City police car during the George Floyd riots in May 2020. Lawyers say Rahman was also reeling from her many “abusive partnership relationships” and processing “early trauma” from being taunted as a Muslim after 9/11.

On the night of May 29, 2020, Rahman “became quite drunk” after drinking vodka on “an empty stomach” with fellow lawyer and later getaway driver Colinford Mattis. Rahman’s attorneys say the pair’s decision to firebomb an NYPD cruiser was an “aberrational” act meant to protect others from future police violence.

“Tossing the Molotov cocktail was a way of expressing anger at those police officers around the country for whom Black lives did not matter,” Rahman’s attorneys wrote in a September memo to U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan. “It was an act of protest intended to avoid exposing others to harm.”

Rahman’s attorneys have requested she be released on “time served,” saying “her conduct that night was a marked deviation from her otherwise exemplary life.”

Yeah, I am calling BS on the inebriation and trauma thing.

A witness testified that Rahman passed the explosives out earlier to rioters. Prosecutors also revealed text messages between Rahman and Mattis showing they planned the attack.

“Bring it to their neck,” Mattis texted Rahman before sharing the location of police headquarters. “Molotovs rollin’,” Rahman responded. “I hope they burn everything down. Need to burn all police stations down and probably the courts too.”

Rahman also gave a video interview before distributing the explosives. “This shit won’t ever stop unless we fuckin’ take it all down,” she said. “The only way they hear us is through violence.”

Meanwhile, it sounds like she and Roger Waters would really get along.

Rahman and Mattis say they have each been diagnosed with anxiety and depression, for which they have received psychiatric care. Both have also been treated for alcoholism.

A clinical psychologist who analyzed Rahman at the behest of her attorneys said the defendant “[b]eneath her surface functionality is gravely compromised.” Rahman, she says, has two therapists, regularly attends meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, and is prescribed an array of psychiatric medications.

roger waters alcohol

Hat tip: Marvin

About the author

Picture of David Lange

David Lange

A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
Picture of David Lange

David Lange

A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
Scroll to Top