Cecily McMillan
Cecily McMillan (born 1988) is an American activist and advocate for prisoner rights in the United States who was arrested and subsequently convicted of felony second-degree assault.
McMillan claimed she was defending herself against an attempted sexual assault by a New York City Police officer as he led her out of the Occupy Wall Street protest in Zuccotti Park on March 17, 2012.
[1][4] Her trial and conviction were criticized as a "miscarriage of justice" by supporters, who accused the court of failing to allow the defense to introduce what they viewed as important evidence.
[12] She graduated from Lawrence University and actively participated in the 2011 Wisconsin protests where she fought to save collective bargaining from its dismantling by Governor Scott Walker.
[15] She planned to write her master's thesis on Jane Addams and the settlement movement, but Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests interrupted her studies.
Her nonviolent approach caused a riff with other protesters who had advocated trashing the building, leading the radical elements in support of the property destruction to hold a "shadow trial" where she was condemned as a "bureaucratic provocateur".
"[16] While McMillan did not initially view Occupy Wall Street in a positive light,[12] she later "got very involved, inspired" by it, calling it "a beautiful experiment".
She was heavily involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement for months before the incident, and was spending up to 14 hours a day in Zuccotti Park.
[20]The trial became a rallying point among people who sympathized with the Occupy Wall Street protests of 2011 and 2012, which called attention to the gap between rich and poor and criticized the government bailout of big banks.
Many of Ms. McMillan's supporters saw in her a potent symbol of the police crackdown that ended the occupation of Zuccotti Park and snuffed out the protest's momentum.
They said McMillan did not report the alleged assault at either of two hospitals where she received treatment on the night of the arrest, but that the pictures were taken days later by her personal doctor.
On May 9, members of the Russian punk rock group Pussy Riot visited McMillan on Rikers Island as part of a campaign by The Voice Project petitioning for leniency.
In an opinion piece for The New York Times, McMillan said that inmates were denied medical treatment, humiliated, and subject to random searches.
that "deplorable conditions existed in the prison," and expressed concern over the death of her friend Judith, who died shortly before McMillan's release.
[30][31][33][34][35][36] In December 2013, McMillan was arrested and charged with obstructing governmental administration after she tried to intervene when a police officer asked two people in a Union Square subway station for identification.
[38] Cecily McMillan Papers, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University Special Collections
