Trump’s DOJ charged hundreds with assaulting officers. Many cases were dropped, but the damage was done

Written by: Brad Heath, Kristina Cooke, MB Pell and Benjamin Lesser

July 30 – Christian Garcia admits to throwing a water bottle at police officers guarding a federal building near Los Angeles during an immigration protest last summer.

He said the plastic bottle was empty and did not hit anyone other than Garcia; the wind blew the bottle towards him. But Garcia, a 32-year-old amateur photographer, was arrested by agents, sentenced to three days in jail and charged with a crime that could keep him in jail for up to a year. He said he lost his job as both a security guard and mystery shopper after his bosses told him he had been summoned by investigators.

Prosecutors later dropped the case without any public explanation.

The Trump administration filed criminal charges against at least 851 people accused of attacking or obstructing federal officials, but they were dropped at an unusually high rate. A ‌Reuters review of federal court records found that 31% of those cases completed so far have resulted in dismissal. That amounts to 8% of all federal criminal cases that typically result in dismissal, according to records compiled by the Federal Judicial Center.

Reuters collected records of everyone accused of assaulting or obstructing federal officers between January 2025 and March and then tracked what happened in those cases. Many of the charges stemmed from the administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, but the cases also included attacks on other federal employees, such as postal workers.

Prosecutors have been particularly unsuccessful in bringing charges against people detained during immigration protests, Reuters found; Of the 86 such cases completed by the end of May, about 45% were withdrawn.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said its leadership has made clear that “anyone who attacks or obstructs law enforcement will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” Justice Department spokeswoman Kiersten Pels said prosecutors should hold people accountable for such attacks, but “if there are mitigating factors identified in a case, then prosecutors should also act appropriately to notify the court and, in some cases, downgrade or reduce the charges.”

The Justice Department’s accusations have imposed a huge cost on some people, even if the cases are dismissed. Reuters interviewed half a dozen people who reported losing jobs despite dropped charges, legal fees and, in some cases, a series of online threats that came after federal authorities announced their arrests.

Garcia said he was unable to return to work even though prosecutors dismissed the case. He also said he never got back the phone that an agent seized.

“It’s like I don’t have any justice whatsoever,” Garcia said. “My whole life changed in one day.”

The original charging document stated that Garcia was “observed throwing an object” at the officers, while others in the crowd threw projectiles “including rocks and water bottles” at the officers’ shields.

Reuters reviewed thousands of court files across the country and interviewed more than 15 investigators, prosecutors and suspects about the Trump administration’s campaign against people who clash with law enforcement and its consequences.

Their accounts show that the Trump administration has regularly chosen to turn encounters into federal cases that prosecutors have historically said would not lead to arrests or serious charges.

Among them is a woman who crashed her SUV into an agent’s car at low speed; a man who challenges a manager to box but throw no punches; and another who jumped into a Homeland Security agent’s car during a protest. And they famously leveled accusations against a Washington man who threw a sandwich that ricocheted off an immigration agent’s body armor.

Other assaults in cases reviewed by Reuters were serious and would almost certainly have been prosecuted under any administration, including the case of a woman accused of biting off the tip of a federal agent’s finger in January in Minnesota.

But the scale and intensity of the Trump administration’s pursuit of allegations of assaults on police officers differ from past Justice Department practices, according to court records and people familiar with the effort.

The Justice Department instructed prosecutors last year that their decisions to dismiss such cases must be explained to Washington, said two officials familiar with the orders who spoke on condition of anonymity. This has pressured prosecutors to take cases that might otherwise be dismissed.

Acting U.S. Attorney Todd Blanche told immigration officials in Arizona in May that the department would prosecute any assault on an officer “no matter what.”

REDUCTION OF FEES

Federal prosecutors almost always win the cases they file. In most years, about 90% of people charged with a federal crime are convicted, according to records kept by the Federal Judicial Center.

The Trump administration’s numerous accusations of assault are a notable exception; prosecutors achieved convictions in 65% of the 481 completed cases reviewed by Reuters. The vast majority of cases were dismissed at the request of prosecutors.

The remainder of the 851 cases reviewed by Reuters are still ongoing.

Kyle Boynton, a former federal prosecutor and FBI agent with experience in assault investigations, said the high firing rate shows that authorities “were moving so quickly that they didn’t have time to do their job effectively.”

In most cases, prosecutors offered no reason to drop the charges other than to say it was “in the interest of justice.”

That was the explanation they gave to Lizzie Rose, who is accused of driving into an SUV carrying immigration agents after following them through Minneapolis in January. A neighbor captured the incident on video, which showed a low-speed crash.

The Department of Homeland Security posted his mugshot on social media with the promise “we will not be intimidated.” His photo also appeared in the news. She said there were enough threats on her feed that she left her home and sent her two children to their father.

“It consumed our lives,” he said. “It was every day.”

Rose, 42, was on leave from her job at a nonprofit in Minneapolis.

RELIABILITY HAS BEEN SHAKEN

When prosecutors dismissed assault charges against 21-year-old Luci Mazur of Chicago, the judge noted that the agent who accused her “swore that he had reviewed video evidence corroborating the suspect’s claim that he grabbed Mazur’s arm and resisted arrest.” But the judge said the body camera footage factored into prosecutors’ decision to drop the case.

Four current and former law enforcement officials said prosecutors’ willingness to take on such cases risks undermining the trust that judges routinely grant to government lawyers, especially when agents’ accounts turn out to be flawed.

Last September, Michael Rabbitt, a local Democratic political official in Chicago, participated in a morning protest outside an ICE processing facility in nearby Broadview that became a flashpoint during the administration’s crackdown on immigrants in the area.

As cars drove by, he said, protesters moved out of the way to let them pass at the direction of Broadview Police. But he said he didn’t expect an ice truck to move protesters out of the way. Video of the incident shows Rabbitt’s hand next to the car slowly moving forward for about 30 seconds.

About a month later, while he and his wife were visiting Portugal for their 30th anniversary, he received a voicemail from an FBI agent telling him that charges had been filed against him and to turn himself in.

The charges included a misdemeanor charge of obstructing the agent’s vehicle and a felony charge of conspiring to impede or injure officers, which Rabbitt called “ridiculous.”

Prosecutors dropped the conspiracy charges in early May, but ICE insisted he appear in court because they blocked his vehicle.

Days before the trial was scheduled, a federal judge in Chicago attacked prosecutors for their handling of the case. The judge accused them of concentrating the federal grand jury in their favor by excusing people who were unlikely to vote for impeachment; improperly suggesting that jurors may rely on the credibility of the prosecutor rather than the evidence; and communicating with jurors outside the grand jury room.

The Ministry of Justice denied all accusations. In a rare occurrence, prosecutors have said they will not object to a defense request that the Justice Department pay some of the attorney fees for Rabbitt and other defendants charged in connection with the same protest.

“I believe deeply in the presumption of regularity and that most government attorneys are doing their best to do the right thing,” Judge April Perry said. “That trust has been broken.”

(Reporting by Brad Heath, Kristina Cooke, MB Pell and Benjamin Lesser; Additional reporting by Andrew Goudsward and Renee Hickman; Editing by Craig Timberg and Brian Thevenot)