Bail Funds, Flush With Cash, Learn to ‘Grind Through This Horrible Process’

During protests in Denver, volunteer medics handed out water bottles with the Colorado Freedom Fund’s phone number on the side. “I took a picture of it, thinking, ‘This is really smart,” said Desiree Wines, who was arrested along with her husband for violating curfew. “In the paddy wagon, I told everyone the number for the Colorado Freedom Fund. I said, ‘Hey guys, repeat this number until you get to a phone,’” Ms. Wines said. The fund paid $500 bail each for her and her husband.

Bail funds have become an instant cause célèbre, with actors and models, singers and rappers posting screenshots of their donations. Since the protests began, more than 3.5 million people and organizations have donated more than $75 million to groups associated with an umbrella organization called the National Bail Fund Network. Another group, the Bail Project — started by the founder of the pathbreaking Bronx Freedom Fund — said it had raised an additional $15 million.

The Colorado Freedom Fund received $1 million, 10 times more than the group had received in the previous two years combined. On a recent Monday, Ms. Epps freed a woman with a single $50,000 cashier’s check — more than the $43,876 her group handed out in all of 2019, to pay 182 bonds.

A thousand miles east, the Chicago Community Bond Fund paid a $400,000 bond on behalf of Chrystul Kizer, 19. She had been held in a Wisconsin jail for two years, accused of killing Randall Volar, 34, in what her supporters say was an act of self-defense by a victim of sex trafficking.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/business/bail-funds.html