Abughazaleh, a Democratic congressional candidate, called the charges "yet another attempt by the Trump administration to criminalize protes
Stephen Montemayor, Madison Savedra, Quinn Myers and Ariel Parrella-Aureli at Block Club Chicago:
CHICAGO — The Justice Department has levied federal conspiracy charges against Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh and five others over protests outside the Broadview ICE facility last month, according to an indictment unsealed on Wednesday.
Abughazaleh, Michael Rabbitt, Andre Martin, Catherine Sharp, Brian Straw and Joselyn Walsh are each being charged with conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers, according to a federal grand jury indictment that was returned under seal on Oct. 23. Some of those indicted protesters also face individual counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers as they protested outside the Broadview ICE facility last month.
Sharp is a Cook County board candidate and currently the chief of staff for Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th), and Rabbitt is a 45th Ward Democratic committeeperson. Martin is Abughazaleh’s campaign field director, and he declined to comment Wednesday.
Straw has served on the Village of Oak Park’s board of trustees in 2023 and also practices as an attorney for a Chicago-based law firm. According to his firm’s web site, Straw has done pro bono work and provided legal support for non-profit organizations with a focus on “immigration, asylum, discrimination and constitutionality issues.”
The indictment focuses on a Sept. 26 protest and accuses the six people charged of surrounding a government vehicle as it approached the Broadview building “with the intent to hinder and impede” an agent from proceeding. According to the indictment, those six, and others, “banged aggressively” on the vehicle, crowded together and pushed against the vehicle.
Someone scratched the word “PIG” on the vehicle and broke a side mirror and windshield wiper, the indictment said. Abughezaleh and others are accused of putting their hands on the hood of the vehicle and remaining “directly” in its path.
“All federal officials must be able to discharge the duties of their office without confronting force, intimidation, or threats,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros said in a statement Wednesday. “As we have warned repeatedly, we will seek to hold accountable those who cross the line from peaceful protests to unlawful actions or conspiracies that interrupt, hinder, or impede the due administration of Justice. The rule of law must always be upheld.”
In a post on social media, Abughazaleh on Wednesday described the case as “yet another attempt by the Trump administration to criminalize protest and punish those who dare to speak up.”
[...]
The Protest At The Heart Of The Indictments
A Sept. 26 social media post by Abughazaleh depicts what appears to be the encounter at the center of the conspiracy indictment.
“At the Broadview ICE facility, an ICE agent tried to run dozens of protesters over with an SUV as we walked on a public crosswalk,” Abughazaleh wrote in the post, which published just before 8 a.m. that day. “He kept driving for about a full football field until ICE barraged us with pepper balls.”
In the 21-second clip, Abughazaleh and about a half dozen others are at the front of a group of protesters crowding around the government vehicle. The crowd chants, “up up with liberation, down down with deportation” as the vehicle slowly pushes forward while Abughazaleh and others hold on to its hood and each other. Multiple people can be seen banging on the vehicle’s hood while others toss stuffed animals at it as the video ends.
The Sept. 26 protest at the heart of the indictment featured hours of conflict between federal agents and demonstrators. Agents deployed rubber bullets, pepper spray balls and pepper spray against protesters — at one point doing so for an hour and a half as outraged protesters crowded in a narrow parking lot adjacent to the facility. The riot-control weapons hit organizers, journalists and photographers who were also at the scene and, at one point, a sniper on the building’s roof fired projectiles that shattered the windows of a nearby business.
The US Department of Injustice levies bullcrap politically-motivated federal conspiracy charges against IL-09 Democratic candidate Kat Abughazaleh, Michael Rabbitt, Andre Martin, Catherine Sharp, Brian Straw, and Joselyn Walsh over protests outside the Broadview ICE facility in Broadview, IL, especially the September 26th one.
See Also:
MSNBC: Kat Abughazaleh indicted over protests outside Chicago-area ICE facility
The Guardian: Democratic contender for Congress indicted over Chicago ICE protests
