Left-wing activist baker who believes in police abolition dies after being run over by robbers

The family of an Oakland baker and former editor who embraced anarchist beliefs believe the robbers who killed her in a broad daylight robbery and assault should not go to jail and her death should not be used to call for more police.

Jennifer Angel, 48, founded Angel Cakes bakery in Oakland in 2008. Before that, she was an editor for what she described as “radical and progressive” magazines and a publicist for authors.

On Monday, Angel was leaving her car outside a bank in uptown Oakland when two robbers broke her car window and fled with her belongings, her fiancé Ocean Mottley said.

She then went after the robbers’ getaway car, caught up with it but got caught in its door and was dragged more than 50 feet. Her head was smashed against the sidewalk and the car sped away from her.

By Thursday, his family had confirmed his death after spending days in a coma at a local hospital.

As local authorities investigate her death as a homicide, the family has requested that her brutal killers not be sent to jail.

In a GoFundMe statement that has raised more than $130,000 as of Saturday, those close to him said they would seek “alternatives” to prison for criminals.

“As a long-time anarchist and social movement activist, Jen did not believe in state violence, prison punishment, or incarceration as an effective or just solution to societal violence and inequity,” they wrote.

They added: “We know that Jen would not want to continue the cycle of harm by bringing state-sanctioned violence to those involved in her death or to other members of the wealthy Oakland community.”

In fact, she once bragged on Facebook that she had taught her employees to do what she does and “never call the police.”

Emily Harris, Angel’s close friend and “anti-prison director,” told the San Francisco Chronicle that the statement fits with his radical liberal principles.

“I think Jen would say that, of course, that’s what people have been trained to believe is the answer, is to lock people up,” Harris said. “But we know that if the people who cause you harm go to jail, all we’re doing is perpetuating more harm.”

Before opening her bakery, Angel was an editor for the left-wing publication Clamor and also worked for the punk rock magazine MaximumRocknRoll, as well as a personal magazine called F**ktooth.

left exit democracy now and radical Canadian punk rockers propaganda they were among those who celebrated Angel in his wake.

Democracy Now described Angel as “an active participant in the struggles against war and capitalism over the years, including Occupy Wall Street.”

in a memory, Delinquency he quoted her stating her anarchist leanings as: ‘The basic principles of anarchism are autonomy, mutual aid, voluntary association and direct action. These are all positive things.

His bakery website it even included a statement of political beliefs.

‘[Angel] believes that Black Lives Matter and that every person has the right to choose their own gender identity and gender expression,’ proclaims the ‘About Us’ section of the store.

“As a store, we strive to reduce waste by limiting the use of plastics and choosing products that do not harm the environment. We do our best to be a good neighbor and member of the community through donations and delivery of desserts to various social justice efforts, particularly in the areas of environmental justice, housing, and criminal justice reform.’

The GoFundMe celebrating Angel gives more details.

‘Jen believed in a world where everyone had the ability to live a life of dignity and joy and worked for a deeply participatory and ecologically sustainable society where all people have access to the things they need, decisions are made by the most directly affected by them. , and all people are free and equal.’

During the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, Angel published articles in favor of rioting and looting in his Facebook page.

They end the GoFundMe, largely intended to continue their pie shop by asking people to ‘do not use your legacy of care and community to further inflame narratives of fear, hate, and revenge, or to advance the allocation of public resources to surveillance, incarceration, or other state violence that perpetuates the cycles of violence that resulted in this tragedy.’

“We’re really trying to steer towards her brilliant life, and that she’s not really a person who would support surveillance and imprisonment of the people who harmed her,” said Harris, who called Angel her first political mentor.

“That does not mean that there is no accountability that we would like,” he added. ‘That [that] It might seem like it’s not about putting a person through more damage… but about understanding how we’re going to prevent this from happening to the next Jen Angel.’

Although crime in Oakland was down slightly from a 15-year high in 2021, 120 people were still killed in the city, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

Murders are still 50 percent above the averages for the five years before the pandemic, as Oakland suffers from the same crime problems as its neighbors in San Francisco.