An op-ed by Nancy Kaffer in the Detroit Free Press makes it sound awful that Siwatu-Salama Ra was in prison, wasn’t released on bail pending appeal, was shackled to a bed when giving birth and then had her newborn child taken from her. And indeed, it may very well be awful, in whole or part.

Last year, Ra, 26, waved an unloaded gun at an acquaintance whom Ra’s mother, Rhonda Anderson, says became belligerent and violent at Anderson’s Detroit home, using her car to hit a parked car in which Ra’s toddler daughter Zala was playing.

No one was hurt. No shots were fired. Ra, a Detroit activist and community organizer with no previous criminal record, is a legal gun owner with a concealed-carry permit, who says she was afraid that the acquaintance would harm her daughter, her mother, or herself. But a jury believed that Ra acted in anger, not in self-defense, and found her guilty of felonious assault.

There’s a lot of weirdness in this story, from what Ra’s toddler daughter was doing playing in a car, to what some “acquaintance” was doing, damaging her own car for some inexplicable reason by using it to hit Ra’s car. And then there’s the waving of the gun and the fact that she went to trial and a jury did what juries often do, found her guilty.

This left a glaring hole in the narrative, and it’s too facile to fill it with the easy answer.

That a mostly white jury didn’t accept a black woman’s fear, seeing anger instead.

Or that a mostly white jury accepted a black woman’s fear, except it wasn’t this black woman, but the one against whom the gun was brandished.

Because the crime involved a gun, there was a mandatory minimum involved. The same sort of furious angst that makes some people demand harsh sentences for guns is still in effect when the story shifts to a gun holder for whom empathy is sought. That’s the nature of mandatory, and you don’t get mandatory for the people you don’t like but not for the ones you do.

At the time of her conviction, however, Ra was pregnant, and with the prosecution’s agreement, bail pending appeal was sought so that she could give birth before starting her sentence.

County prosecutors have twice agreed that Ra isn’t a danger to the community: When Ra’s attorneys asked that she remain free on bond until after the birth of her son, a pregnancy her doctors documented as high-risk, county prosecutors agreed, endorsing a deal that would have kept Ra out of prison until 45 days after delivery.

And last week, when Ra’s attorney asked that she be freed on bond pending appeal of her conviction, county prosecutors likewise didn’t object.

When the prosecutors agree, or even don’t object, judges almost invariably go along. But not this time.

But in both instances, Wayne County Circuit Court judges chose to keep the 26-year-old Detroiter behind bars. So she gave birth while incarcerated, transported to a hospital to deliver son Zakai, with whom she spent just 24 hours before relinquishing him to prison staff to deliver to her husband. And she is still there.

It seems inconceivable, fundamentally inhumane, to have denied this agreed-upon bail so that she could give birth before serving her sentence. The natural question is why. What could she have done to justify such harshness, such callousness?

“This is one of the most mean-spirited decisions by a judge I have ever experienced,” Fink said. “Judge Knapp, with no knowledge of the case whatsoever and with no knowledge of the mother of a newborn, decided she was a danger to society because of her conviction. He’s the only one in that courtroom, from my vantage, who thought Siwatu shouldn’t go home.”

But the op-ed offers no explanation. Maybe there is none. Maybe there is none that wouldn’t make a reader question everything about the op-ed. But it’s a glaring hole in the story. The quote from Ra’s lawyer is fine, but calling the judge “mean-spirited” is unsatisfying. Was this just one evil person, drunk on power?

As it turns out, there was another side of the story, and one the jury apparently credited.

Harvey says Ra approached her car, using profanities and angrily telling her to leave. When Harvey didn’t immediately go, she said Ra told her “I got something for you.”

Then, according to Harvey, Ra went to her parked car, pulled out her daughter who had been playing in the front seat, then pulled out a gun and aimed it at Harvey and her daughter.

Harvey’s account continues with Anderson coming down off the porch and “smacking the gun” out of Ra’s hands. After it fell to the ground, Ra picked it up and pointed it at Harvey and her daughter again. That’s when Harvey says she drove away, going immediately to the police station and filing a police report — and providing them with three cell phone pictures she’d snapped of Ra holding her gun.

That there’s more to the “story” doesn’t make Ra’s story false, but it blunts the narrative. And then there is more to know about Ra than what’s revealed in the op-ed.

CAIR filed the civil rights complaint against the DOC, saying that ever since she arrived at the women’s Huron Valley correctional facility, she’s been discriminated against for her beliefs.

She has been unable to get a hijab or Islamic head covering, despite many requests by herself and our organization to provide her with one,” CAIR attorney Amy Doukoure said.

Prison spokesperson Chris Gautz says she didn’t arrive at the prison with a hijab and also didn’t ask for one. The request instead came from attorneys representing her.

“We immediately went to the prisoner and asked her if she would like one. She indicated that she would so we provided her with the form that she can fill out to purchase a hijab,” Gautz said.

Ra and her mother, Rhonda Anderson, are both activists, and what role this played, if any, or should have played in this scenario is a mystery. No matter what, it seems outrageous that a judge refused to let her out to give birth, no matter what the judge thought otherwise.

But the fact that Kaffer’s narrative omits those parts of the story that don’t fit, that fail to serve the appeal to emotion, and leaves a glaring hole, is a huge red flag. There’s usually a “rest of the story,” and when someone fails to raise it, fails to address it, it’s hard to ignore and not feel as if you’re being played for a vapid, emotional fool.