Family and friends of an “anarchist” California baker who died after a savage robbery don’t want her still-at-large assailants to go to jail but undergo “restorative justice” as an alternative.
Jen Angel, who ran Bay Area bakery Angel Cakes, was robbed after two thieves smashed her automotive window and ran off together with her purse near a Wells Fargo in Uptown Oakland Monday afternoon, the San Franciso Chronicle reported.
Angel, 48, chased after the duo’s getaway automotive, but got caught within the vehicle’s door and was dragged more the 50 feet, smashing her head on the sidewalk. She was put in a medically induced coma and declared dead Thursday.
“As a long-time social movement activist and anarchist, Jen didn’t consider in state violence, carceral punishment or incarceration as an efficient or simply solution to social violence and inequity,” her family members wrote on a GoFundMe page arrange within the wake of the attack.
The suspects, who’re known to police, were still on the loose as of Friday, based on the Chronicle.
Angel’s family members urge the town to honor her memory by ensuring that they don’t do hard time if caught, based on the GoFundMe page, which has raised greater than $138,000 up to now.
The group said that they might be open to alternatives to traditional prosecution, comparable to “restorative justice.”
Considered one of Angel’s friends, Emily Harris, who’s an anti-prison director, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the baker was her first political mentor and believed that using prison to punish individuals actually prevented each victims and aggressors of crimes from actually healing.
Locking up the people answerable for her friend’s death would only “perpetuate more harm,” Harris said.
“That doesn’t mean that there isn’t accountability that we might want for (the perpetrators),” Harris said. “What (that) could seem like isn’t about putting an individual into further harm … (but) understanding how we’re going to forestall this from happening to the subsequent Jen Angel.”
Friend and political activist Pete Woiwode told the Chronicle that Angel often turned to the community for help and support in times of trouble, including when a speeding automotive crashed through her bakery’s window and caused major damage in 2019.
A 12 months later, she reached out to her neighbors and friends for financial assistance again when an unhinged man used a paving stone to smash her store’s window.
“It was totally random, and just unlucky on so many levels, just like the state of mental health care normally and the randomness of that connecting with our big window,” Angel wrote on Instagram after the incident.
Oakland Police told the Chronicle that it was investigating the case as a homicide.
Major crimes in Oakland are down 9 percent through Feb. 5, in comparison with the identical period last 12 months.
