Jury Acquits Cal State Professor Arrested at ICE Raid

Remember that math professor at Cal State Channel Islands who was arrested by federal ICE agents in the fields near Camarillo?

Jonathan Caravello was protesting the immigration raid at Glass House Farms last summer. It took a federal jury just a few dozen minutes to throw out the charges yesterday, following a two-day trial at the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles.

This was the latest in a string of defeats for the Trump Justice Department in cases in which it has charged protesters with assaulting federal officers.

In July, when federal agents raided the cannabis grower Glass House Farms and arrested 361 allegedly undocumented workers, Caravello was on the scene protesting. At one point, Caravello picked up a tear gas canister that had been rolled in the crowd by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent and threw it. The canister sailed over the heads of a few federal agents, did not hit anyone and did not land near anyone.

But that was enough for the U.S. Attorney's Office to get a grand jury to indict him on a felony charge of assault on a federal officer using a deadly or dangerous weapon. Caravello could have faced up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Opponents say it was yet another use of federal tax money to go after opponents of the ICE raids. Yet another jury throwing it out.