Fog covers the Golden Gate Bridge in Sausalito, Calif. on Thursday, September 5, 2024.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
With the trial now underway, jurors weighing the fate of seven pro-Gaza activists charged with shutting down the Golden Gate Bridge will soon face a crucial question:
Should the defendants be found guilty of crimes that carry more than a decade behind bars if their actions are viewed as justified?
In Wednesday’s opening statements in downtown San Francisco, prosecutors and defense attorneys urged jurors to view essentially the same set of facts through vastly different lenses.
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Assistant District Attorney Angela Roze argued that the case was “simple:” There is no doubt that the seven participated in an April 15, 2024 demonstration that shut down traffic for hours, trapping commuters on the Golden Gate Bridge. Regardless of their motivations, Roze said, the result was that they committed crimes including conspiracy and false imprisonment.
Defense attorneys, however, said their client’s actions must be considered in context: Each believed it was their urgent, moral duty to speak out against the U.S. support of Israel for the war in Gaza.
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Many of the defense attorneys — each representing a separate defendant — said their clients had already tried more conventional calls to action. They had written to Congress, called their representatives, marched in permitted protests and attended events where politicians were speaking.
“And nothing changed,” said Deputy Public Defender Nuha Abusamra, who represents defendant Juliette River Allen. “The death toll was increasing because of our tax dollars funding the genocide.”
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One defense attorney likened the protesters’ actions to that of a person who pushes a child out of the way of an oncoming car. If the child breaks a bone in the process, attorney Jac Lyons posed, was the person’s act a crime?
“Of course it’s not,” said Lyons, who represents defendant Sara Cantor. “Technically, your act of shoving that kid out of the way is what caused him the injury, but at the time you dove into the street, you didn’t have the criminal intent to hurt him, you had the intent to save his life.”
The defendants are accused of both felony and misdemeanor crimes including conspiracy and false imprisonment, and could each face up to 14 or 15 years in prison if convicted.
The seven individuals on trial were among the 26 people initially charged following the demonstration; a group that adopted the moniker the “Golden Gate 26.” Several of the charges were later dismissed after a judge found that evidence collected by the California Highway Patrol was insufficient to support them.
On the morning of the shutdown, officials said demonstrators began gathering at around 7:55 a.m. in the southbound lanes of Highway 101 near the center of the bridge leading from Marin County to San Francisco.
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Prosecutors said members of the group formed a human chain with people inside three vehicles and pedestrians standing next to them. The protesters linked their outstretched arms to the people standing next to them, locking their hands inside metal tubes in a tactic known as the “sleeping dragon.”
Officers said they told the group they were part of an unlawful assembly, and that they refused to move until officers threatened to cut into their cars.
When announcing the charges in August 2024, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said the blockage caused “extreme threats to the health and welfare of those trapped,” and said people exercising their rights to free speech shouldn’t do so at the expense of public safety.
Prosecutors said the people trapped on the Golden Gate Bridge included a person with a brain tumor who missed a medical appointment, a disabled child on a school bus and a surgeon forced to cancel all operations that day.
Supporters for the group have long argued that the charges filed against them were unreasonably harsh, and an attempt to silence their activism.
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The Civic Center courtroom on Wednesday morning filled to near capacity with spectators; many wearing keffiyeh scarves as a symbol of solidarity with the defendants and Palestinians.
Among them was Raye Kahn, who was one of the initial 26 people charged in the case. Kahn, who said they resolved their misdemeanor charges in diversion court, said they came to support their co-defendants.
San Francisco, Khan said in an interview after opening statements, “has such a rich history of civil disobedience.”
“Civil disobedience is effective and necessary when the government is not listening to the voices of the people,” said Khan, who acts as a media liaison for the group. “The government was not listening, and was not doing anything about it.”
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