San Francisco, Calif.- April, 25, 2017- Florida’s first African American state attorney, Aramis Ayala, recently received a makeshift noose and other racist messages in her mailbox after refusing to seek the death penalty in capital murder cases. Ayala, who works in Orange-Osceola county, began receiving hate mail when Governor Rick Scott reassigned 23 of her murder cases. She has now sued him in response- claiming that he cannot remove her from the cases.
According to the county’s sheriff’s officials, Attorney Aramis Ayala received her first hate letter on March 20 at her office. The clerk also noticed that the racist letter was addressed to her in messy handwriting on an envelope when she picked up the mail. Then she got a postcard in the mail about a week later that had green twine in the shape of a noose taped to it. However, this story didn’t make national news until last Friday.
The Orlando Sentinel stated that both pieces of mail appeared to be from the same person and the State Attorney’s Office clerk saw both of them. The Daily Mail also reports that authorities are currently investigating the incident targeted towards Ayala.
Ayala said she “believes the hangman’s noose was meant as a threat to her as a public official,” according to an incident report. Florida deputies are now investigating and teamed up with the U.S. Postal Service to try to uncover where the letters came from. Ayala also said she thinks the incidents are a hate crime.
Ayala would be absolutely correct. The letters that have been sent to her definitely count as hate crimes, particularly the one with a noose attached. Her incident comes less than 2 weeks after Sheila Abdus-Salaam was found dead by the Hudson River in New York, who was the first African American woman to serve on New York’s Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state.
Sheila’s case was odd because no one reported that she was missing. Also, her home was in Harlem but her body was found floating in Upper Manhattan according to The New York Times. NYPD initially ruled her death as a suicide, despite her family saying that she was a happy person and couldn’t think of any reason why she would commit suicide. It may or may not be a coincidence that these two women have been targeted within less than a month of each other, however, it is very strange they both were the first African American women ever to hold their position, and they both have been mysteriously targeted.
Even though both cases took place in different parts of the country, the authorities should really see if there are any connections with the cases. Aramis Ayala became a controversial figure in Florida last month when she decided not to seek the death penalty in any of her cases, including with defendant Markeith Loyd who killed a cop and allegedly his pregnant girlfriend. When Sheila Abdus-Salaam was a judge, she often sided with disenfranchised groups in cases, which included the poor, impoverished immigrants and people with mental illnesses rather than more powerful, established individuals.
Any individual with a lot of anger towards Ayala or Abdus-Salaam, or the policies or philosophies they endorse, could easily find them since they are public figures. Both women can be considered controversial leaders in their communities. Both are breaking gender and ethnic barriers with the positions that they hold (held) as well. It’s not uncommon for people of color, in this case African Americans, to be assaulted or killed by someone and their case is never solved. This dates with back to the unsolved murders of Medgar Evers in 1963 and James Earl Chaney in 1964 who both advocated for civil rights.
Hopefully the perpetrators who sent State Attorney Ayala a noose gets found and a charged with a hate crime, and Sheila Abdus-Salaam’s mystery surrounding her death is solved so her family can have closure. The authorities should also encourage local public figures like judges, attorneys and politicians, to be cautious when they leave their homes and possibly seek out extra security for themselves.
Fortunately for Ayala, she does have the support of many groups, including anti-death penalty advocates and members of the Florida Legislative Black Caucus. In Florida, where capital punishment is legal and supported by lots of people down there, any support for her stance is probably greatly appreciated by her.
Hopefully, the state attorney received the last of her hate mail. And these recent tragedies are not a chain of unfortunate events targeted specifically for African American women who are leaders in their communities.
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