A Kern County Superior Court Judge has granted Bakersfield activist Riddhi Patel a mental health diversion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Patel will return to court next month for a status hearing and a progress report on the diversion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The backstory: Patel made national headlines two years ago when she made threats to the Bakersfield City Council.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bakersfield police arrested Patel during the council meeting on April 10, 2024, after making her threats when urging the council to support a cease-fire resolution for the Israel-Hamas war at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope one day somebody brings the guillotine and kills all of you motherf___ers,\u201d Patel told the council.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She addressed the council another time later in the meeting when the council was discussing adding certain security measures \u2013 such as metal detectors \u2013 to city buildings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cRegardless of whether you elect people into office, they\u2019ll backstab you,\u201d Patel said. \u201cThey\u2019ll let you die. And for that reason \u2013 you guys want to criminalize us with metal detectors, we\u2019ll see you at your house. We\u2019ll murder you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Flashback: Prosecutors charged Patel with making criminal threats against city and public officials. Patel pleaded not guilty.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She was released from jail after posting bail of $500,000 and was fired from her job at The Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The big picture: Last week, Kern County Judge John Brownlee granted Patel a mental health diversion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The diversion allows Patel to enter a mental health treatment program. All charges will be dropped against her if she completes the program.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Patel had previously undergone mental health exams last November and in January.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What we\u2019re watching: Patel\u2019s next court appearance is scheduled for March 6.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Kern County Superior Court Judge has granted Bakersfield activist Riddhi Patel a mental health diversion.\u00a0 Patel will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-170937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}