Samantha Frances Brooks

Released
Age:29
Gender:Female
Race:White
Era:2020s
Inmate Number:#19550-509
State:Washington
Support
Environmental Activism Indigenous Sovereignty
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Biography

Samantha Frances Brooks is a Bellingham, Washington activist who placed a shunting device on BNSF railroad tracks near Bellingham with Ellen Reiche on November 28, 2020, in solidarity with the Wetsuweten hereditary chiefs opposing pipeline construction across British Columbia. A shunt makes a stretch of track read as occupied, which halts trains; the two were arrested at the scene and charged in December 2020 under 18 U.S.C. § 1992, the federal statute covering terrorist attacks and other violence against railroad carriers. Brooks pleaded guilty in July 2021 and was sentenced in October 2021 to six months in federal prison, four months of home confinement, three years of supervised release and 200 hours of community service — a lighter sentence than Reiche received. The Bureau of Prisons, where she was register number 19550-509, records her as out of custody on May 20, 2022.

Case

Charges: 18 U.S.C. § 1992(a)(5) — terrorist attacks and other violence against railroad carriers.
Arrested: Nov 28, 2020
Released: May 20, 2022
Sentence: Six months in federal prison, four months of home confinement, three years of supervised release and 200 hours of community service, imposed October 2021 — lighter than co-defendant Ellen Reiche received. Bureau of Prisons register number 19550-509; released May 20, 2022, the date the BOP inmate locator gives as the point she was no longer in Bureau custody. NO ADMISSION DATE TO BUREAU CUSTODY IS DOCUMENTED, so the imprisonment counter stays empty: six months counted back from the release would fall around November 19, 2021, but that is arithmetic rather than evidence. The record previously ran a single span from the November 2020 arrest to May 2022 and counted 538 days, which cannot be right — she pleaded guilty in July 2021 and was sentenced that October, and had she been held from the arrest her credit would have exceeded the six-month term before it was even imposed. She was released pending trial after the arrest; the length of that first custody is not documented. The four months of home confinement are not counted as imprisonment. Verdict as recorded: Yes — guilty plea, July 2021; sentenced October 2021. Charges as recorded: 18 U.S.C. § 1992(a)(5) — terrorist attacks and other violence against railroad carriers, for placing a shunting device on BNSF Railway track near Bellingham, Washington on November 28, 2020 with Ellen Reiche, in solidarity with the Wetsuweten hereditary chiefs opposing pipeline construction in British Columbia.
Convicted: Yes

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