DENVER — A jury in Colorado found a couple guilty on Friday of conveying false information about a threat against a Black mayoral candidate when they burned a cross in front of his campaign sign, even though the couple was trying help the candidate by generating sympathy among voters.
Prosecutors argued that Ashley Blackcloud, who is indigenous and Black, and Derrick Bernard, who is Black, orchestrated and then broadcast the hoax to aid the candidate. However their actions still amounted to a criminal threat, prosecutors said.
The cross burning happened in 2023 during the run-up to the mayoral election in Colorado Springs, the state’s second-largest city. Images and video of the episode were emailed to local news outlets to boost the campaign of Yemi Mobolade, who is now the city’s first Black mayor.
Blackcloud’s attorney did not deny in the trial this week that she participated in setting up the cross burning and defacing the sign. Bernard denied participating but acknowledged during testimony that he disseminated the images even though he knew it was a hoax.
Because cross burning is protected by the First Amendment, the case came down to whether the act was a threat.
Prosecutors argued that even though Blackcloud’s and Bernard’s intention was to help Mobolade, he perceived the actions as a threat, with his family buying fire ladders and a medical trauma kit for their house.
“What was Yemi and his family supposed to see through the flames? A joke? Theater?” said Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bryan Fields. The defendants, he said, “needed the public to believe this was a real threat in order for it to have the effect that they wanted of influencing an election.”
Fields likened it to a student who calls in a fake bomb threat at a school in order to avoid taking a test, forcing the school to evacuate and causing other students anxiety.
Blackcloud’s defense attorney, Britt Cobb, said the cross burning was merely “meant to be a political stunt, political theater” to show that racism was still present in Colorado Springs. Blackcloud “did not mean this as a real threat of violence,” Cobb said.
Cobb further argued that Mobolade knew it was a hoax early on, because his campaign staff said in text messages that they were confident it was staged and because Mobolade didn’t immediately call the police.
“If he knows it’s a hoax, there’s no way its a threat,” she said.
Mobolade has strongly denied any involvement, but Cobb suggested the politician knew something of the plans, citing communications between Bernard and Mobolade before and after the cross burning. The FBI’s investigation did not determine that Mobolade had a role in the cross burning.
“You cannot maliciously convey a threat,” added Bernard’s attorney, Tyrone Glover, “when you’re trying in your own way to help somebody.”
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Bedayn is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.