From Bakersfield now (Jackson Walker):
Officers escorted Riddhi Patel, 28, out of a Bakersfield City Council meeting after she repeatedly made death threats to council members who were considering a ceasefire resolution in Gaza. Patel spoke in favor of the resolution, but expressed skepticism about the council’s willingness to pass it.
“I have no confidence that you will do something like that,” Patel said of the resolution. “You guys are all horrible human beings and Jesus probably would have killed you himself.”
Patel, who identifies as non-binary, he then threatened a violent riot if council members chose to oppress their constituents.
“I remind you that these holidays that we practice, that other people in the global south practice, they believe in violent revolution against their oppressors and I hope that one day someone brings the guillotine and kills you all, you son of a bitch ——,” Patel said .
Patel then addressed the board a second time, expressing outrage at the presence of metal detectors at the meeting.
“In the last five years that I have been attending city council meetings there have never been metal detectors, there have never been so many police officers,” Patel said. “The only reason you do that is because people don’t actually care if you don’t like them and they’re actually resisting it, so you’re trying to criminalize them.”
“See you at your house,” they added. “We will kill you.” …
Patel was charged with the threats and remains in jail with bail set at $2 million.
For more on Patel, see Tweets archived here:
Please blacklist it @riddhipatel1025 and don’t let it endanger the leaders of Bharat, @NIA_India @HMOIndia @IndianEmbassyUS https://t.co/LQlItfmald pic.twitter.com/zZgLAQx3iE
— Utsav ???????? (@UtsavSanduja) April 13, 2024
The tweets appear to come from the Twitter account @riddhipatel1025 which Bakersfield Now indicates was associated with Patel. (It has since been deleted, although an archive of identifying information can be viewed Here; also links to this page.)
I appreciate that there are many Patels in this world, even in America, and that the photo associated with the Twitter page is slightly different from the image in the video. But this March 27 Facebook post @riddhipatel1025 appears to confirm the connection suggested by the Bakersfield Now article: The post sought donations for an “emergency bail fund” for “5 people arrested today at a Bakersfield City Council meeting after people had been going out for MONTHS with the United Liberation Front… to ask the city council to introduce a ceasefire resolution,” the Bakersfield Now link between Patel and @riddhipatel1025 appears to confirm. (The United Liberation Front published an article Wednesday saying it “unequivocally condemns any statements that threaten public officials,” apparently referring specifically to Patel’s comments.)
Patel also appears to be (or at least to have been) “an economic development coordinator at the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment (CRPE)”; here is his biography transcribed from the CRPE website:
Riddhi joined the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment in September 2020. She was born and raised in Bakersfield, California and attended Stockdale High School. She then earned a bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from Saint Louis University in 2017. After returning to Bakersfield in 2019, she began volunteering for the Bernie 2020 campaign where she found the organization. After the campaign ended, she quickly found a home in the Sunrise Movement, co-founding the local Sunrise Movement hub in Kern County with other local organizers.
Through her advocacy for common-sense statewide setbacks to protect frontline communities across the state, she found CRPE in the fall of 2020. She prioritizes highlighting the intersectionality that comes from the movement for environmental justice to achieve collective liberation for all oppressed communities. In her free time, she enjoys holding elected officials accountable, watching countless movies, television series and sports, and enjoying time outdoors with her family and friends.