As Angi DeFelippo looked in her rearview mirror and saw the caravan of police vehicles trailing her, she knew she was in trouble. But she did not think she would spend the next few hours detained at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center hungry, scared and, in her opinion, unlawfully imprisoned.
DeFelippo, 38, was arrested on April 27 for obstructing a roadway as one of the two Dallas May Day Protest organizers. Her fellow organizer, Rick Majumdar, was also arrested for the same offense. A political director for the Tarrant County Central Labor Council, DeFelippo played a crucial role in staging the peaceful protest, which advocated for expanded labor rights and opposed the Trump administration’s recent policies.
“I wasn’t expecting it to get that aggressive,” she told the Observer. “I wasn’t expecting to spend 7 to 8 hours in jail with the option of having dirty tap water and unrefrigerated bologna as meals.”…