A 21-year-old Mississippi woman has been released from jail after she was arrested for calling her parents racist on social media.
According to reports cited by Fox News, Kaileigh Schmidt of Petal called her father and stepmother racist in an online post, and she was subsequently charged on Wednesday with two misdemeanor counts of obscene telecommunication.
But Carlos Moore, one of her attorneys, said the charges were dismissed by the Jones County Sheriff's Office the next day.
Moore told the Jackson Clarion-Ledger: "She spent a night in jail for simply exercising her First Amendment right on Facebook."
It has been confirmed by online records that the 21-year-old was released from jail on Thursday.
In the Facebook posts, Schmidt was accused not only of calling her parents racists but of sharing their personal information, phone numbers, and addresses.
Sheriff's investigator Ruben Bishop said that the pair received death threats as a result, adding that the 21-year-old was angry at her parents because they had taken her car.
Moore said that his client should never have been arrested at a news conference on Friday, WDAM-TV reported.
"Anyone reading an affidavit with a grain of sense knows that that was not a crime," he said.
Schmidt was also being represented by attorney Javoran Buckley Sr. of Chicago.
This comes as unrest continues to unfold across the US, as protests - some peaceful, some violent - are calling out the systemic injustices carried out against black people, not least seen by the recent deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor.
As well as a call for justice, these ongoing protests are also demanding an end to police brutality and the racism that is so deeply entrenched in America and the western world.
The message is simple: Black lives matter.
VT proudly supports Black Lives Matter, and for ways to contribute to the cause, please click HERE.
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