Woman accused of throwing Molotov cocktail at NYPD pleads not guilty

Samantha Shader threw a Molotov cocktail at an NYPD vehicle back in May. There were four officers inside the vehicle at the time. Fortunately the homemade firebomb didn’t ignite. The police arrested Shader and now she is facing a long list of charges. Last Friday she pleaded not guilty.

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Shader was indicted in June on seven counts, including use of explosives, arson, using an explosive to commit a felony, arson conspiracy, use of a destructive device, civil disorder and possessing and making a destructive device.

According to a criminal complaint, New York Police Department officers saw Shader throw a Molotov cocktail at their vehicle, jumped out and arrested her. The May 29 incident was caught on video shot by a witness.

Prosecutors said Shader admitted to “possessing the Molotov cocktail and throwing it at the NYPD vehicle.” Prosecutors say Shader “wanted to cause harm to NYPD officers and damage NYPD property,” according to a detention memo.

Unfortunately for Shader, the whole thing was caught on video.

This happened during a Black Lives Matter march in Brooklyn. After her arrest, she told investigators the Molotov cocktail wasn’t hers. Instead, she claimed it had been given to her by a black man in the crowd.

Caught on tape, Shader admitted to throwing the Molotov cocktail, but claimed “she was approached on the street and given ‘the bottle’ by a black male, who was in a group with one other black male and a black woman,” the papers say.

She even described the trio, saying the man who handed her the bottle was a “thicker guy” with hair in “skinny dreads” of different colors, the papers say.

The other man was smaller and wore a hat, and the woman was thin with “poofy” hair in a ponytail, Shader allegedly claimed.

“Shader stated that the man who handed her the bottle told her that they were going to prove a point, and [Shader] stated she felt important at the time she took the bottle because she was the only white person in the area,” the papers say.

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Investigators say that story isn’t true. Shader drove to the protest in a car filled with glass bottles of the same type as the one she threw at the police. Police even found a note in Shader’s car which read, “I found a few more glass bottles Than I thought I had, Though still not many. Wish I had more. BE SAFE Please. Really[.] Good Luck, – Love Tim.” Tim was identified as 29-year-old Timothy Amerman. He now claims that he thought Shader was going to throw the bottles at the police but denies that he was aware she intended to make Molotov cocktails out of them. He has been charged with “civil disorder and civil disorder conspiracy.”

So the irony here is that this deeply committed BLM protester tried to blame a (nonexistent) group of black people for producing Molotov cocktails the moment she was arrested. Shader faces up to 20 years if convicted on all charges.

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