As the military occupation of L.A. draws down and community organizers, activists, lawyers, and protestors prepare for ICE and DHS’s next moves, protestors charged with felonies during the first weekend of anti-ICE protests have had their charges dropped. The Guardian reveals that this is largely because federal agents were filing false affidavits that prosecutors did not end up using. In other words, federal agents seem to have been caught blatantly lying.

According to the Guardian article, officers made false statements, misinterpreted video footage, accused protestors of physical assaults that the officers themselves actually perpetrated, and even named a wrong defendant in an indictment. Why go through all the trouble to detain protestors, file charges, and have officers testify, only for charges to be dropped?

“It seems [that] this is a way to detain people, hold them in custody, instill fear and discourage people from exercising their first amendment rights,” said Cristine Soto DeBerry, a former CA state prosecutor.

In a related story, according to sources talking to the LA Times via TPM, the U.S. Attorney’s office has been struggling to get grand juries to indict Los Angeles anti-ICE protestors. And U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi is not happy about it!

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action.)