George Floyd protester who tried to firebomb a NYPD van gets 6 years in jail

A protester who admitted to throwing a lit Molotov cocktail into an occupied NYPD van during the 2020 George Floyd protests in New York City was sentenced to six years in prison on Tuesday.

Samantha Shader, then 27 years old, was accused of throwing the makeshift explosive at the marked police vehicle in May 2020 as cities around the U.S. were being engulfed by fiery demonstrations.

The Molotov cocktail shattered the van’s window but failed to ignite, allowing the four officers inside to get out of the van unharmed, according to police at the time.

Shader was taken into custody and confessed to police that she had thrown the cocktail. Investigators say the improvised firebomb did not ignite because she used toilet paper as a fuse instead of a rag.

She plead guilty to a single federal charge of causing damage by fire and explosives to a police vehicle. The police department had initially pushed for attempted murder charges for each person in the van before federal prosecutors took over.

During Tuesday’s sentencing, Brooklyn federal Judge Dora Irizarry had testy exchanges with Shader’s court-appointed lawyer, who she accused of improper legal defense before a sentencing, reports the New York Post.

Amanda David, the defendant’s attorney, argued her client had been intoxicated before she threw the Molotov cocktail as she asked Irizarry for a lighter sentence.

“That’s a legal defense. Diminished capacity is a legal defense. That’s exactly what you were arguing,” the judge responded.

“You can’t speak out of both sides of your mouth,” she added.

Irizarry also dressed down David when the defense lawyer cited how Shader had undergone 70 hours of psychiatric treatment since her incarceration at the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal jail in Brooklyn.

The judge note that most inmates represented by public defenders, especially people of color, rarely get any treatment behind bars and pointedly asked why that was the case. David dodged the question.

Shader apologized for the attempted firebombing before receiving her sentence.