THE TRIAL OF SEVEN PROTESTERS who were arrested on the Golden Gate Bridge in 2024 for protesting Israel’s mass slaughter of civilians in Gaza will resume Tuesday after defense attorneys started presenting their cases last week.
All are facing one count of felony conspiracy and several misdemeanors, including nine counts of false imprisonment. They face a maximum of 14 to 15 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
The group was arrested on April 15, 2024, after stopping all three open southbound lanes of traffic at the midway point on the iconic bridge between San Francisco and Marin County, which is also U.S. Highway 101.
The group stopped cars and locked themselves in a chain with some people standing outside of vehicles and some seated in them, making it hard for first responders to disentangle them.
The protesters were calling on U.S. lawmakers to end military support for Israel at a time it was being accused of war crimes for its killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza. By the time the trial started last month, about 73,000 Palestinians had been killed, about 70% of whom were women, children and the elderly, according to the United Nations. About 173,000 have been injured.
The seven have separate cases that are being tried together before Judge Teresa Caffese in San Francisco Superior Court. The defense is expected to wrap up by the end of the week, when closing arguments could be made.
The first two defendants testified Friday that they believed their actions were justified under a legal principal known as the “necessity defense,” which asserts that an otherwise illegal action is legal if it is taken to save the life of another person.
To prove such a defense, the defendants must show they acted in an emergency to prevent significant bodily harm or evil, had no alternative, that the acts did not create a greater danger than the one being prevented, that they believed at the time the act was necessary, and that a reasonable person would have also believed such action was necessary, according to the Judicial Council of California, which sets policy and administers the courts.
The two defendants, Conrad De Jesus and Sara Cantor, each testified that they had sought other avenues to stop what they considered an imminent threat of more loss of life in Gaza. This was based on what they said was the United States’ continued transfer of weapons to Israel as the casualty count and number of displaced civilians in Gaza continued to rise.
Cantor said Israel’s then impending siege on the Gaza city of Rafah, at the Egyptian border, prompted her to think of other ways to bring immediate attention to the matter.
Both acknowledged hearing advertisements for a national day of action on that day, which was Tax Day, but said planning was minimal and was largely finalized at a meeting in West Berkeley the day before the demonstration.
The costs of demonstration
The day of the protest, hundreds of people ended up stuck on the bridge for about four hours. The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office said the long traffic stoppage made people miss work and appointments, cost the bridge about $156,000 in tolls, and put people risk of medical emergencies.
Prosecutors said in a statement that when the seven were arrested, along with 19 others, people stuck on the bridge were left without bathrooms, food or water.
The prosecution rested its case last week after calling multiple California Highway Patrol officers and people stuck on the bridge to testify.
CHP Capt. Tyler Carlton, who led the emergency response that day, told jurors that he never considered opening a fourth lane on the bridge, which has a lane that can be changed from one direction to the other during heavy traffic.
Cantor testified Friday that she and others assumed that the fourth lane would be opened both to alleviate the traffic and let emergency vehicles reach anyone suffering from an urgent medical problem. She said protesters were prepared to abandon the demonstration if there was such an emergency.
De Jesus said he was not part of the meeting the night before the protest and still did not know details of the planned protest until the day it took place.
He testified that he received a call from a friend the night before the demonstration asking him to meet him at the Ashby BART station in Berkeley the next morning. He said he had no idea what the plan was until he found himself riding in a car to the bridge with a group of people that had brought covered chains with lock boxes in them that CHP referred to as “sleeping dragons.”
An incredulous Assistant District Attorney Angela Roze pressed De Jesus on how he came to be chained to those other people on the bridge without any communication about it ahead of time, including on the car ride over, as he testified.
De Jesus said he volunteered and it seemed apparent to him that he would be one of the people locked together because he had done it at another protest at a Lockheed Martin facility in Cupertino.
He said he had advocated for an Israel-Gaza ceasefire resolution at Oakland City Council meetings, had written letters to his congressional representative and had marched in rallies but decided to move to direct action after feeling like nothing was getting politicians’ attention.
“I believe our government was funding the genocide,” De Jesus told jurors.
The U.S. has provided between $16.3 billion and $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel since October 2023, when its assault on Gaza began.
He described getting his news directly from people in Gaza over social media and seeing a father caring for his daughter who was a victim of an Israeli air strike that made him overwhelmed with emotion.
Cantor similarly said she felt stopping traffic on the bridge was the only way to get lawmakers’ attention. She described being unable to stop thinking about the violence unfolding in Gaza, saying she thought about it “every second of the day.”
Cantor said a brief pause in weapons deliveries by the administration of then-President Joe Biden ahead of Isreal’s Rafah assault made her feel like the protest accomplished its immediate goal.
All five other defendants are expected to testify this week.