As pro-Palestinian demonstrations broke out across the US during the first year of war in Gaza, thousands of people were arrested, charged, or cited for their involvement. Most of the cases against them did not stick, a new Guardian analysis of prosecution data in a dozen major cities finds.
About 60% of alleged offenses committed by protesters did not result in prosecutions. The Guardian identified about 2,800 charges, summons and citations brought or requested against Gaza protesters. Around 1,600 were dropped, dismissed or otherwise not filed, data shows.
The figures are probably an undercount – data between October 2023 and November 2024 was collected from prosecutors’ offices and attorneys who represented large numbers of protesters, but may not include every case in a city. Some cases are still working through the legal system.
Legal advocates argue that the high number of dismissals reflects policing tactics, such as mass arrests, that are often designed to silence protesters and chill dissent, but frequently cannot hold up in court. They say the tactics are also used as a means to make it appear as if protesters were more violent than they were, and turn public opinion against them.
“The state’s intent is not really to prosecute – the intent is to scare people out of wanting to participate in protests at all,” said Ria Thompson-Washington, a board member with the National Lawyers Guild, which represented many protesters.
The figures varied by city. In Los Angeles, about 88% of 476 charges, summons and citations reviewed by the Guardian were dismissed. In Chicago, about 60% of around 500 were dropped. In Portland, Oregon, however, just 10% of 52 were dismissed.
Police in part use mass arrests as “a crowd control tactic and an easy and quick solution”, said Xavier de Janon, director of mass arrest for the National Lawyers Guild. The legal standard to make an arrest only requires probable cause that a crime is being committed, he added. Most of the protesters who were charged were hit with minor charges like noise or curfew violations, or trespassing, de Janon said.
Cases are often dismissed because prosecutors have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an individual protester committed a crime, and that can be difficult to achieve when dozens or hundreds of people were swept up in a mass arrest, de Janon added.
No prosecutors’ offices contacted by the Guardian commented on the record.
Laurae Caruth, a research fellow at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said she could not speculate on why mass arrests were being carried out, but said arrests had a “deterrent effect”.
“If someone gets arrested now for being a part of a protest, maybe they’ll think again about going to the next one,” Caruth added.
While the majority of cases did not result in prosecution, advocates say that some of the ones that did were motivated by pro-Israel bias. In Michigan, the Guardian revealed that the attorney general, Dana Nessel, had personal, financial and political connections to University of Michigan regents and pro-Israel donors who wanted charges brought against largely student protesters. Nessel so far has charged 11 people who were arrested on campus in 2024. Those cases are still moving through the legal system.
Nessel’s charges came after local prosecutors dropped 36 out of 40 charges stemming from a late 2023 protest in a UM campus building.
Observers say that, broadly speaking, protesters for progressive causes are facing an escalating crackdown by the right and moderate Democrats. Often with political support, police and prosecutors have recently charged Gaza or police reform protesters with domestic terrorism, racketeering or ethnic intimidation for acts like kicking over an Israeli flag.
“Political prosecutions have political intentions,” de Janon said. “As movements have grown stronger, the charges are becoming worse and worse.”
Even so, those charges often do not stick. In Atlanta, for example, prosecutors in November had to drop money laundering charges against three people coordinating financial support for Stop Cop City, the movement against a controversial police training center. In San Francisco, where about 67% of 717 Gaza protest charges were dismissed, prosecutors tried charging protesters who marched on the Golden Gate Bridge with conspiracy and false imprisonment of motorists on the bridge. A judge in November tossed most of the charges against 26 protesters.
“Charging decisions are made based on the facts, evidence and the law,” the office of the district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, said in a September statement. “We do not pursue political prosecutions under any circumstances at any time.”
However, de Janon said people who are charged face a difficult process defending themselves, and “the punishment is in the process.”
Caruth said the cases could not be painted with a broad brush: “Each jurisdiction’s reasons for charging the way they do are different.”
In Dallas, Boston and Northampton, the latter home to the University of Massachusetts, none of around 375 charges against Gaza protesters were dismissed until protesters completed a “diversion program” that required some combination of a small amount of community service, a short probationary period or a small fine.
Those involved with the cases sometimes framed diversion programs as a dismissal of charges. But legal observers say the programs still chill free speech because they punish protesters, disincentivizing them from protesting in the future.
“The state will make whatever necessary adjustments they need to so they can criminalize protesting,” Thompson-Washington said. “Even if the charges are being dropped, or the charges are minor, like community service, the intent is still to make people afraid, and wave in front of their face what they can lose.”
