Seven pro-Palestine protesters convicted after Golden Gate Bridge blockade, with felony conspiracy deadlocked

A San Francisco jury on Thursday 2 July convicted seven pro-Palestine activists of multiple misdemeanour charges for shutting down the Golden Gate Bridge during a 2024 Tax Day protest against US military support for Israel in Gaza, while deadlocking on the most serious count of felony conspiracy.

The seven activists were each found guilty of six misdemeanour counts, including false imprisonment, obstruction of thoroughfare and unlawful assembly, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said in a statement on Thursday.

Local broadcaster KQED named the seven as Bhavika Anandpura, River Allen, Rocky Chau, Conrad de Jesus, Sarah Ferrell, Em Tillotson and Sara Cantor. Cantor, who acted as a police liaison during the event, faced an additional misdemeanour conviction for refusing to disperse.

The defendants face up to five years in county jail for the misdemeanour counts and are scheduled for sentencing in August. The seven defendants will be sentenced on 21 August.

Felony charge collapses

While prosecutors secured misdemeanour convictions, the jury remained deadlocked on the felony conspiracy charge, which could have carried a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

When Judge Teresa Caffese asked about the split on the deadlocked charges, a foreman said the jury hung 10-to-2 in favour of guilt for conspiracy, but 11-to-1 against guilt for trespassing. Judge Caffese declared a mistrial on both deadlocked counts.

Jenkins said her office would "evaluate our options and consider next steps," thanking the jury for its service. No retrial decision had been announced at the time of publication.

The Tax Day blockade

A total of 26 protesters took part in the Tax Day "Stop the World for Gaza" demonstration on 15 April 2024, with part of the group forming a human chain and employing the "sleeping dragon" technique, in which their arms were linked inside plastic tubes, making it more difficult for law enforcement to remove them without injury.

The protesters drove onto the Golden Gate Bridge from Marin County, stopped their cars in a row and extended their arms through pipes across all four lanes, physically blocking southbound traffic coming into the city for four hours.

The seven were part of a larger group that participated in a multi-city effort to put pressure on the US government to halt support for Israel's war in Gaza on Tax Day 2024. Demonstrators also shut down traffic on Interstate 880 in Oakland and staged similar protests in San Diego, Seattle, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Chicago and Tallahassee, Florida.

A judge dismissed most of the charges against the group, originally known as the GG26 or Golden Gate 26, in November 2024, tossing about 75 percent of the charges that were mostly misdemeanours. After charges were reduced and ultimately dismissed for 18 of the group, another with a felony charge saw that charge dismissed for lack of evidence, and the remaining seven went to trial in May.

Prosecution and defence

District Attorney Jenkins emphasised the safety risks and human toll of the four-hour gridlock, noting that stranded motorists included medical workers missing hospital shifts and a mother unable to access water for her baby's formula.

Prosecutors argued that the demonstrators knew their conduct was illegal, pointing to evidence that they declined to seek a protest permit and chained themselves together to make their removal more difficult.

Defence attorneys had argued that the protesters acted out of moral conviction and that seeking a criminal conspiracy conviction for civil disobedience was "egregious." Deputy public defender Nuha Abusamra said the verdict showed "jurors were not persuaded the evidence supported the extraordinary felony charges the prosecution chose to bring."

Israel's war in Gaza — which has killed tens of thousands, triggered a hunger crisis and internally displaced nearly all of Gaza's population — has been called a genocide by rights experts, scholars and United Nations inquiries. Israel describes its actions as self-defence following an October 2023 Hamas-led attack that killed 1,200 people and in which over 250 were taken hostage.

Sentencing is set for 21 August in San Francisco Superior Court.