Documents obtained by The Guardian and reported on Monday further detail how the Trump Justice Department has been forced to drop cases against protesters in Los Angeles because of false claims made by federal immigration agents.
The Guardian’s review of federal law enforcement files revealed that “out of nine ‘assault’ and ‘impeding’ felony cases the Justice Department filed immediately after the start of the protests and promoted by the attorney general, Pam Bondi, prosecutors dismissed seven of them soon after filing the charges,” the newspaper reported.
“In reports that led to the detention and prosecution of at least five demonstrators, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents made false statements about the sequence of events and misrepresented incidents captured on video,” The Guardian continued. “One DHS agent accused a protester of shoving an officer, when footage appeared to show the opposite: the officer forcefully pushed the protester. One indictment named the wrong defendant, a stunning error that has jeopardized one of the government’s most high-profile cases.”
The new reporting builds on a story published last week by the Los Angeles Times, which detailed how interim U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli has struggled to secure grand jury indictments against Los Angeles demonstrators who have taken part in protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in recent weeks.
“Although his office filed felony cases against at least 38 people for alleged misconduct that either took place during last month’s protests or near the sites of immigration raids, many have been dismissed or reduced to misdemeanor charges,” the Times reported.
Cristine Soto DeBerry, a former California state prosecutor who currently works as director of the criminal justice reform group Prosecutors Alliance Action, told The Guardian that “when I see felonies dismissed, that tells me either the federal officers have filed affidavits that are not truthful and that has been uncovered, or U.S. attorneys reviewing the cases realize the evidence does not support the charges.”
“It seems this is a way to detain people, hold them in custody, instill fear, and discourage people from exercising their First Amendment rights,” DeBerry added.
Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
