{"id":347918,"date":"2026-06-05T12:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T12:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/347918\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T12:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T12:10:08","slug":"they-shut-the-golden-gate-bridge-for-4-hours-now-they-face-up-to-15-years-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/347918\/","title":{"rendered":"They Shut the Golden Gate Bridge for 4 Hours. Now They Face Up to 15 Years in Prison."},"content":{"rendered":"

It began like any other Monday morning commute, with drivers zooming south from Marin County to the Golden Gate Bridge as they headed toward San Francisco.<\/p>\n

At 7:55 a.m. on April 15, 2024, some cars stopped in unison, right in the middle of one of the world\u2019s most iconic spans. Out poured 26 protesters, determined to make a dramatic statement on Tax Day against American tax dollars funding Israel\u2019s military while it attacked Gaza.<\/p>\n

Most of them stood in front of their vehicles and held banners, including one that read, \u201cStop the World for Gaza.\u201d A smaller group \u2014 some remaining in their cars, others standing just outside them \u2014 locked their arms together in metal tubes and refused to budge.<\/p>\n

It did not take long for traffic to clog, and thousands of vehicles to snake through the rainbow-painted Robin Williams Tunnel and into the lush green hills to the north. Many people missed work that day. Others missed important medical appointments. Nobody died and no one was believed to have been injured, but the protest infuriated plenty of people.<\/p>\n

The protesters were arrested and their vehicles towed after about four hours. Traffic moved on, but the protesters\u2019 lives did not. The seven who chained themselves together are now in a multiweek criminal trial in San Francisco Superior Court, where they could face up to 14 or 15 years in state prison.<\/p>\n

In a liberal region where roadway protests have been part of the fabric for decades, many activists see the possible sentence as extraordinarily severe. In the past, protesters have avoided felony charges and agreed to perform community service and pay restitution, as was the case for activists who blocked the Bay Bridge in 2023<\/a> to call for a cease-fire in Gaza when President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was in town for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaying that you will face 15 years in jail, that\u2019s outrageous,\u201d Walter Riley, an Oakland civil rights lawyer who was at the courthouse to offer moral support, said during a trial break. \u201cWe cannot support this D.A.\u201d<\/p>\n

San Francisco is far removed from its Haight-Ashbury counterculture days of more than a half-century ago. The city has become a tech mecca, with seemingly endless riches pouring into companies that are part of the A.I. boom<\/a>. Voters in 2024 elected a wealthy heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, Daniel Lurie<\/a>, to run the city as a moderate Democrat.<\/p>\n

As part of the city\u2019s centrist tack, residents ousted Chesa Boudin, their social reform-minded district attorney, in 2022 as frustrations mounted over crime, drug use and homelessness. His replacement, Brooke Jenkins<\/a>, was appointed with something of a mandate to punish criminals, violent or not, and improve the city\u2019s quality of life.<\/p>\n

The jail population in the city is now 50 percent higher than it was in 2022.<\/p>\n

Ms. Jenkins declined to address the specifics of the Golden Gate Bridge case, saying she could not comment on a trial currently underway, but she discussed protests generally.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it violates the law and puts public safety in jeopardy,\u201d she said, \u201cI have a job to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

But to the protesters and their supporters, Ms. Jenkins\u2019 charges are shockingly draconian in modern-day San Francisco. The seven on trial are facing several misdemeanor charges and one felony count of conspiracy.<\/p>\n

After starting on May 20, the trial began winding down with closing statements on Thursday, and jurors will likely begin deliberating Friday.<\/p>\n

Joseph Cotchett, a Bay Area trial lawyer who is not involved in the case but has been following it, said that if the jury finds the defendants guilty, he would expect Judge Teresa Caffese to hand down time behind bars. But 15 years in prison would \u201cbe absurd,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For much of the past couple of weeks, scores of people, many of them wearing a kaffiyeh, the scarf that signifies support for Palestinians, have filled a courtroom across the street from San Francisco\u2019s gold-domed City Hall in support of the defendants.<\/p>\n

Some of them are the ones who held banners but did not link arms during the bridge closure. Those protesters planned the demonstration with those now on trial, but they had their records wiped clear after they paid restitution and performed five hours of community service.<\/p>\n

Still, the group has banded in solidarity, calling itself the Golden Gate 26.<\/p>\n

Ms. Jenkins asked that kaffiyehs be banned from the courtroom, along with the word \u201cgenocide\u201d in testimony, but Judge Caffese declined both requests.<\/p>\n

On the trial\u2019s opening day, Angela Roze, an assistant district attorney, told jurors that the protesters had prioritized their personal cause over the well-being of everybody else trying to cross the bridge.<\/p>\n

\u201cChildren were forced to defecate in bags. People had little to no water,\u201d she said in her opening statement. \u201cBecause these seven individuals decided that their cause, their message, was more important.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that the protest ended only when law enforcement officers told the seven that they would cut into the vehicles to remove them. The protesters were using metal tubes that law enforcement officers call \u201csleeping dragons\u201d<\/a> because the devices seem innocuous but are actually difficult to extricate people from.<\/p>\n

The seven protesters, each with a different defense lawyer, have stressed that they tried other, lawful ways of protesting first. They called their representatives in Congress. They wrote postcards. They attended rallies. Nothing worked to stop the war.<\/p>\n

Rocky Chau, 37, grew up in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco and now works by providing in-home care for his mother, who is elderly and disabled, in the city of Richmond, across the bay.<\/p>\n

He testified that he started following news of Israel\u2019s attacks on Gaza and grew increasingly disturbed. One article, about a 92-year-old grandmother in Gaza who was found dead weeks after an Israeli raid, left him particularly distraught, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt reminded me of my mom,\u201d he said, pausing as he wept on the stand. \u201cI knew I needed to do more.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he had heard before the protest about the \u201cnecessity doctrine\u201d \u2014 a legal theory that criminal behavior can be defensible if it prevents a greater harm from occurring during an emergency \u2014 and believed it applied in this case. He added that the protesters had taken care to assign one person to be a liaison to the police, leave space for emergency vehicles and bring food and water for people who were stuck.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing I wanted to do, the only thing I ever intended, was to send a message and get the United States government to stop the genocide,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Regina Schneider, a retired legal secretary who lives north of the Golden Gate Bridge, in Novato, Calif., testified about the effects of being stuck in her friend\u2019s car for hours. In an interview later, she said she missed an important oncology appointment.<\/p>\n

She said that she wanted the defendants to be sentenced to some detention time, though she declined to say how much.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of us are horrified by things that are happening in Gaza, Ukraine, Iran, all around the world,\u201d she said. \u201cYou do not adversely impact the lives of thousands of people to make your point.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the hallway, as the court proceedings continued, Mr. Riley, the civil rights lawyer, consoled Amy Ferrell, whose daughter, Sarah, is on trial.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere in San Francisco, to have this outcome is shocking,\u201d Ms. Ferrell said.<\/p>\n

Ms. Ferrell said her daughter had educated her about the war in Gaza, but she did not know about her daughter\u2019s participation in the bridge protest until she received a call that night.<\/p>\n

\u201cMom, I\u2019m in jail,\u201d she recalled hearing, adding she was inspired by her daughter\u2019s commitment to social justice and shocked by the charges against her.<\/p>\n

Ms. Ferrell said she lives in Baltimore and flew to San Francisco to attend the trial on a one-way ticket. She will not leave, she said, until she knows her daughter\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n

Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It began like any other Monday morning commute, with drivers zooming south from Marin County to the Golden…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[108424,11917,142553,101,8264,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-347918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-demonstrations","tag-golden-gate-bridge","tag-protests-and-riots","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-bay-area-calif","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}