Golden Gate 26 Face Retrial After Hung Jury

Golden Gate Bridge, April 15th, 2024 | Photo Credit Saman Qadir

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA — San Francisco has already spent upwards of 600K in taxpayer dollars to prosecute the Golden Gate 26 (GG26) for protesting the use of our taxes for military aid to lsrael’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing campaigns across the region. The SF District Attorney (SF DA) initially hit the GG26 with 1,144 criminal counts, and two years and 43 convictions later, the SF DA is set to spend hundreds of thousands more retrying seven GG26 protestors on a felony charge.

On July 2nd, after 7 weeks of trial, a jury refused to convict the 7 GG26 protestors of felony conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor. The defendants were convicted on several misdemeanor charges, including 4 counts of false imprisonment and one count each of obstruction of a thoroughfare and unlawful assembly. Defendant Sara Cantor was additionally convicted of misdemeanor refusal to disperse at a riot. The defendants face up to 5.5 years in jail. Meanwhile, in June, a civil grand jury recently reported SF jails were at ‘breaking point with no end in sight’ as a result of ‘harsher law enforcement practices’.

The SF DA pursued this costly trial despite a court hearing in late 2025 where the defendants pooled their resources and paid financial restitution to people delayed on the bridge. Calculations indicate the prosecution of the GG26 has already cost San Francisco taxpayers $575,981 — $652,737 since April 2024, an estimate that does not include all costs incurred. Unless the SF DA drops the deadlocked charges, a retrial will begin on August 21, 2026, the same day the defendants are scheduled to be sentenced on the misdemeanor convictions.

Testimony and evidence presented at trial contradicted the District Attorney’s characterization of the protest as a public safety matter. The protesters testified they had agreed to move off the road in the event of a medical emergency, but no emergency occurred. The police liaison, Sara Cantor, who faces the most convictions, maintained open lines of communication with law enforcement to ensure all harm to commuters was avoided as the protestors demanded an end to a greater and unimaginable emergency in Gaza. Some of the motorists were able to turn around and take different routes, though law enforcement did not help coordinate this effort. A Witness brought forth by the prosecution testified that he felt the DA had sensationalized his experience dealing with a brain tumor to prosecute this case. The public safety emergence at hand is our government’s arming and funding of a military that intentionally targets children, at the expense of the needs of our communities here in the Bay Area.

Pursuing a retrial with no meaningful benefit to San Francisco residents would require the SF DA‘s office to spend several more hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars for a protest that occurred over 2 years ago, where no one was harmed, all while the US taxpayer- funded Israeli military defies the October 2025 ceasefire agreement on the daily.

This prosecution is part of a national trend of criminalizing dissent and civic engagement. While the Trump administration is openly targeting political activists, immigrants, and trans communities, San Francisco should be protecting the right to protest, not criminalizing it. San Francisco residents are overwhelmingly opposed to the misallocation of our taxes towards Israel’s genocide and colonization in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. During jury selection, many potential jurors were dismissed for voicing that this was a waste of time and they would not convict the protestors.

Defendant Bhavika Anandpura stated: “The overprosecution is intended to scare people from speaking out against our country’s participation in genocide and colonialism in Palestine. It has not worked. For example, people in the Bay Area have been demanding an arms embargo ever since breaking reports revealed that Oakland Airport ships military cargo to Israel multiple times a week. See here with individual folders named after the respective photojournalists to be credited.