Activist Sentenced to Jail for Spray-Painting Custer Statue

Report on the sentencing of an anti-colonial activist in Monroe, Michigan. For more info on how to write political prisoners, go here.

On Wednesday, March 20th, in front of a packed county courtroom in Monroe, Michigan, local anti-colonial activist Peatmoss Ellis was sentenced to a 30-day jail term for spray-painting a message of resistance on a statue of civil-war era genocide-perpetrator General Custer on Indigenous Peoples’ Day in 2022.

First District Court Judge Amanda L. Eicher explicitly stated that she was assigning Ellis the maximum possible sentence in order to deter others from engaging in dissent.

“This heavy-handed sentence is a politically-motivated decision and the worst-case scenario for a misdemeanor,” said local climate activist John R. Sullivan. “The purpose of this decision is to uphold the legacy of genocide and white supremacy. The county wants to deter us from fighting back against the state’s past and ongoing crimes against indigenous and other racialized and oppressed people. The people’s response should therefore be the opposite of deterrence.”

Ellis is the co-director of a homeless shelter based in Ann Arbor, MI, and a regular volunteer at an animal sanctuary. Prior to sentencing Ellis, Judge Eicher sentenced multiple other people struggling with poverty and substance use issues to pay thousands of dollars in court fees and submit to extensive surveillance and probationary conditions.

“This is not only an attack on dissent against colonial legacy, it is also an attack on the poor,” said Sullivan. “Peatmoss serves an essential function in housing the local homeless population. By locking them up during this period of harsh weather, Judge Eicher is putting the most vulnerable members of our community in grave danger.”

Custer, who was originally from Monroe, Michigan, is responsible for the forced displacement and murder of thousands of Indigenous people. He led multiple attacks and treaty violations against the Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. In 2021, the United Tribes of Michigan unanimously passed a resolution calling for the removal of his statue in Monroe as a symbol that is “widely perceived as offensive and a painful public reminder of the legacy of Indigenous people’s genocide and present realities of systemic racism in our country.” In 2020, an activist coalition led by people of color petitioned for the statue to be moved from downtown into a museum. In response to this petition and at least one other totalling nearly 25,000 signatures, Monroe city council stated they had no plans to discuss relocation of the statue.

“Despite the harsh sentence, Peatmoss was in good spirits throughout the day and was supported by so many of their friends and comrades in court,” said Ellis’s friend Chris Pierce. “The repressive sentence handed down by Judge Eicher hasn’t damaged Peatmoss’s spirit of resistance. They’re already working to advocate for fellow inmates at the Monroe County jail by organizing a protest to an initiative by the jail manager to collect and destroy inmates’ books and magazines.”

To write to Peatmoss, please address letters to Lillian Ellis (Inmate #000204306), 100 E 2nd St, Monroe, MI, 48161.

Photo by Saad Chaudhry on Unsplash