A Republican prosecutor in rural Washington ran as a reformer.
The Republican fascist police-state machine drove him out. Read all of it and it becomes quite clear that racism, of course, played a big part as well.
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When Arian Noma ran for prosecutor in a rural Washington county in 2018, he was a newcomer who vowed to stop the over-prosecution of crimes and seek bail only when necessary. Standing inside the wood-paneled Okanogan Grange, Noma gripped a microphone and told the crowd, “If you want to make change, I’m your candidate. If you want things to remain the same, I think you know who to vote for.”
“As we continue to make regulations and over-regulate our citizens nationwide, over-criminalize everything … before you know it, we all have badges of conviction,” Noma said. “And if you don’t have a family member or you yourself or a friend that’s been through the system … you have no idea how difficult it is to function and reintegrate into society.”
The 44-year-old Republican wanted to create a reentry support group for people released from incarceration and had other grand ideas, too, which he said would ultimately save taxpayers money. “My office will not only work with law enforcement regarding cases, we will offer trainings, discussions, and other opportunities to cooperate to solve cases together,” Noma, a former prosecutor in Maryland, told the Okanogan Valley Gazette-Tribune before winning nearly 60 percent of the vote in Okanogan County. “Rapport and comradery are essential to forging relationships.”
But halfway through his four-year term, Noma resigned. In a letter to voters, he cited a “woefully deficient” budget and case backlog as reasons for his departure. One of his deputies was forced to handle more than 200 criminal cases at a time, while another was grappling with 140 cases. Noma described his predicament as fighting “tanks and guns with bows and rocks.”
The final straw, Noma continued, was a series of “racially motivated attacks.”
Speaking publicly for the first time since his resignation, Noma—whose ancestry includes Black, Native American and Filipino heritage—told The Daily Beast that he believes the online harassment campaign had help from law enforcement and county colleagues, including people within his own office.
He says the online smear campaign—which included anonymous critics snapping photos of his vehicle and asking for “information,” sharing internal county emails with complaints about him, and the sale of anti-Noma merchandise—ramped up after he supported Black Lives Matter protesters last summer. And after he wrote to Okanogan County Sheriff Tony Hawley regarding a mob of armed civilians who flooded the city of Omak to confront “antifa” during summer protests. Noma said armed groups should be prohibited from future demonstrations because they could be in violation of state law.
Noma said he and his supporters suspect, but cannot prove, a coterie of county employees organized an anonymous Facebook page against him. They point to leaks of official correspondence and the wording of certain posts as proof.
“How much of it is racism and the good old boys system that was there?” Noma said. “I don’t think they’re inseparable. I’m still trying to digest how much of it was because I’m an outsider and how much of it was my race but I think both of them played a role.”
“It was a concerted effort by employees, non-employees and other departments, and the 9,400 residents who voted for me have no idea what’s going on,” he added. “And I didn’t either. I’m too new to this. I’m not a politician. I’m not going into politics again.”
The harassment campaign “started the moment I took office but it started to gain steam by attacking me on the Second Amendment,” Noma said. “I hate how they say you’re picking sides. There’s no side to human life. My side is human life, I don’t want to see anybody get shot. I don’t want to see anybody get hurt, Black or white. “
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