The Arkansas Democratic Party’s nominee for state auditor was taken into custody last week on felony charges.
According to Just the News, Diamond Arnold-Johnson stands accused of having committed first-degree terroristic threatening.
Allegations during trial
Allegations concern a series of Facebook posts that were originally thought to have been written by her husband, Arick Johnson.
However, the website noted that Arnold-Johnson appeared to admit while testifying at his trial in August that she was the actual author.
While Arnold-Johnson was arrested without incident on Friday, an earlier attempt to arrest her was abandoned after the candidate refused to go peacefully with police, resulting in the deployment of a SWAT team.
“The situation continued to intensify and the decision was made not to escalate a non-violent situation, only to serve a non-violent warrant,” a police official said.
For its part, the Democratic Party of Arkansas was quoted as saying in a statement that it is “aware” of Arnold-Johnson’s arrest. The organization then went on to put distance between itself and the candidate.
“The Democratic Party of Arkansas did not recruit her to run for Auditor of State, and we cannot bar her from running for this position,” the statement read. “We remain focused on working for a better Arkansas and winning races across the state.”
Candidate decries “systemic racism”
Arnold-Johnson put up a Facebook post on Saturday trumpeting her release from jail. She also put up another post taking issue with the Arkansas Democratic Party’s response to her arrest.
“This is systemic racism trying to do what it is intended to do… steal our hope,” she declared before adding, “But God has other plans. WE WILL not be deterred.”
Arnold-Johnson cited a post on the Facebook page Arkansas Progressive Democrats which accused the party of being “very brusque about the issue.” The post complained that Arnold-Johnson had been subjected to “months of police harassment.”
“The grandstanding of her opposition and the smug public dismissal by some of her fellow democrats is shameful and clear that liberals and conservatives alike have a class awareness and racism problem,” it declared.