{"id":21,"date":"2026-05-24T14:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T14:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalconsumerreportss.com\/?p=21"},"modified":"2026-05-24T14:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T14:12:10","slug":"r-i-p-chicago-protester-prosecution-2025-2026-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalconsumerreportss.com\/?p=21","title":{"rendered":"R.I.P. Chicago Protester Prosecution (2025-2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Yesterday, at the end of a dramatic hearing at which a federal judge revealed improper prosecutorial conduct, the government dismissed charges against four protesters arising out of an incident outside of a Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holding facility in Broadview, just outside of Chicago. It was the final twist in a case that was both highly unusual and yet emblematic of the Trump administration\u2019s troubles in trying to make criminal charges against its antagonists stick.<\/p>\n

Read more The Week That Was<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the story of that case, from birth to death.<\/p>\n

Operation Midway Blitz and the Broadview Protests<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Sept. 6, 2025, President Trump\u00a0posted on Truth Social a picture titled \u201cChipocalypse Now,\u201d with imagery evoking the 1979 movie \u201cApocalypse Now.\u201d Trump wrote \u201cI love the smell of deportations in the morning\u201d\u2014another dark nod to the classic film, in which\u00a0Colonel Kilgore\u2019s beloved morning aroma is napalm. \u201cChicago about to find out,\u201d Trump added, \u201cwhy it\u2019s called the Department of WAR \ud83d\ude81\ud83d\ude81\ud83d\ude81.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two days later, the Department of Homeland Security announced\u00a0Operation Midway Blitz had begun. Federal agents fanned out across the Chicago area to pick up anyone they believed was not lawfully present in the U.S. As in other cities, the Department of Justice was quick to bring criminal charges against anyone it alleged was getting in the way of enforcement efforts.<\/p>\n

Detainees were sent for initial processing to the Broadview facility, which quickly became a flashpoint for protests. As chronicled in a lacerating by Judge Sara Ellis of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, federal agents frequently lobbed flashbang grenades, tear gas, and pepper balls at protesters without warning, and similarly targeted journalists. (As also chronicled in the opinion, these agents later went on to inaccurately describe their actions in court.) On one occasion, agents pushed people to the ground and laughed about it while blood oozed from a person\u2019s ears.<\/p>\n

On Sept. 19, agents\u00a0reportedly hurled tear gas, pepper balls, and flash-bangs against protesters who were trying to block vehicles from entering and exiting the building. One masked federal agent dressed in camouflage\u00a0picked up and tossed to the ground Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old former media researcher with a hefty social media following who was running for the Democratic nomination for the 9th Congressional District of Illinois.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what it looks like when ICE violates our First Amendment rights,\u201d she tweeted. In response, White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson wrote, \u201cObstructing law enforcement (which is what you just posted a video of yourself doing) isn’t a First Amendment right. It’s a crime.\u201d A clip of the incident\u00a0went viral on social media.<\/p>\n

On Sept. 26, the protesters returned and blocked a street leading to the facility. After a vehicle turned in the direction of the facility,\u00a0according to the Chicago Tribune, \u201c[p]rotesters surrounded the vehicle, banging on the windows, throwing plushy toys and yelling \u2018shame!\u2019 as the driver pushed slowly through the crowd and agents let off a volley of pepper balls into the street.\u201d Protests lasted for four hours; two arrests were made. One protester, per the Tribune, \u201cwore a Snow White costume with silver Doc Martens rationalizing that federal agents might think twice about firing on someone dressed as a Disney princess.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps seeing a campaign advantage in continuing to attack ICE, Abughazaleh returned to Broadview the following Friday, Oct. 3, where she slammed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for \u201ccrimes against humanity.\u201d In response, department spokesperson\u00a0Tricia McLaughlin called Abughazaleh \u201c[d]ishonest, desperate and demonizing law enforcement to try to get 5 minutes on MSNBC and some fundraising cash.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Indictment<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the end of October,\u00a0the Department of Justice announced that on Oct. 23 a grand jury had handed up\u00a0an indictment of six Sept. 26 protesters, including Abughazaleh. Other political figures were also charged: Brian Straw, a trustee of the village of Oak Park; Catherine Sharp, chief of staff to Alderman Andre Vasquez and a candidate for a Cook County Board seat; Michael Rabbitt, a Democratic committeeperson in the 45th<\/sup> ward; and Abughazaleh\u2019s deputy campaign manager, Andre Martin. (The sixth was Joselyn Walsh, a researcher and musician who, at another point in that day, had an\u00a0ICE-fired rubber baton round smash through her guitar.)<\/p>\n

The Justice Department\u2019s press release\u00a0linked to a video purportedly depicting the scene at the protest. The video shows people thronging a vehicle as it approaches a gate, slowing it to a crawl.<\/p>\n

The six were charged with conspiracy to injure or impede an officer in violation of 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 372 and forcibly impeding, intimidating, and interfering with a federal officer in violation of 18 USC \u00a7 111(a)(1)., this was the first \u00a7 372 charge ever brought by the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Northern District of Illinois. The statute was as part of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871; the Department of Justice\u2019s Office of Legal Counsel\u00a0noted in 1977 that the statute \u201chas been infrequently used\u201d and that \u201c[m]ost reported cases have involved internal revenue agents whose efforts to track down tax-evading operators of illegal stills met with resistance.\u201d Section 111, by contrast, has become\u00a0this administration\u2019s favorite charge against those protesting immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n

The indictment alleged that the defendants, \u201cand others\u201d:<\/p>\n

among other things, banged aggressively on the Government Vehicle\u2019s side and back windows, hood, and other vehicle body parts; crowded together in the front and side of the Government Vehicle and pushed against the vehicle to hinder and impede its movement; scratched the body of the Government Vehicle, including etching a message into the body of the vehicle, specifically the word \u2018PIG;\u2019 broke one of the Government Vehicle\u2019s side mirrors; and broke a rear windshield wiper off the Government Vehicle.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Had the case gone to trial, defense counsel would likely have suggested that the ICE officer recklessly turned his vehicle into the crowd of protesters, who then reacted in self-defense. The government did not specifically accuse any defendant of causing damage to the vehicle.<\/p>\n

The case was assigned to Judge April Perry, a Biden appointee confirmed shortly after the 2024 election who made headlines in October 2025 when she of National Guard troops to Illinois, a decision that the administration unsuccessfully. Before ascending to the federal bench, Perry had hoped to become the U.S. Attorney for that district, but in 2023 was blocked by then-Senator J.D. Vance, who had placed a hold on all Department of Justice nominees to protest the department\u2019s prosecution of Trump.<\/p>\n

Pre-Trial Developments<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the ensuing months, the defense lost two key motions. Yet the case significantly narrowed all the same.<\/p>\n

Like\u00a0many of their predecessors during the Trump administration, the defendants alleged that they were being prosecuted selectively and vindictively, in violation of their due process rights. In a, they sought to compel the government to disclose any communications that might support a motion for selective and vindictive prosecution. Noting the White House\u2019s and Department of Homeland Security\u2019s attacks on Abughazaleh, the defendants argued that Trump and his administration had \u201crepeatedly and openly taken steps to improper [sic<\/em>] bend the Department of Justice toward his personal and political interests\u201d\u2014illustrating their point with a photo of the huge banner of Trump recently draped outside Department of Justice headquarters. The motion also noted that the defendants had not used force against or threatened the agent, nor had they damaged the vehicle. Rather, the \u201cone commonality\u201d among the several defendants (who, as discussed below, had gone from six to four) is that they were all \u201coutspoken critics\u201d of the administration and involved in government, either holding public office, running for office, or working for a political campaign. \u201cThe actions of these four Defendants were some of the most minimal actions depicted in the videos of the incident, yet their voices against the Trump Administration were some of the loudest.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government with surprising anger, calling it \u201cthe product of fevered paranoia and delusional speculation, not to mention grossly disingenuous and thoroughly irresponsible.\u201d Giving their thesaurus a workout, they slammed defendants for \u201cwhingeing\u201d and \u201ccaterwauling,\u201d as well as \u201cpusillanimously\u201d not alleging any animus by the line prosecutors. The government insisted that all decisions in the case had been based on the law and the facts, and that some persons were not charged because they were all masked and could not be identified (which the defendants disputed). By contrast, \u201cthe government faced no comparable difficulty in identifying the original six defendants, each of whom was unmasked and several of whom made public statements proclaiming that they were at the Broadview facility during the incident.\u201d The government said that \u201cthere are no communications of any nature from, to, or with anyone outside the USAO (other than the local FBI investigators assigned to the case) regarding any investigatory or charging decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

In light of the government\u2019s statement,\u00a0Judge Perry denied the defendants\u2019 motion to compel. She was unimpressed by the defendants\u2019 occupations, noting that \u201cpublic officials being charged is the bread and butter of the U.S. attorney\u2019s office\u201d and that such status is \u201calways considered a plus factor.\u201d<\/p>\n

On March 16, the defendants the \u00a7 372 count on First Amendment grounds. Defendants argued that the \u201cspontaneous conspiracy\u201d that prosecutors alleged would criminalize the defendants\u2019 mere assembly and speech. Because they were engaging in a protest at the time they committed their alleged acts, they argued, \u201cmere proximity and parallel conduct\u201d by the defendants should not suffice to allege a felony conspiracy charge under \u00a7 372. Judge Perry rejected that motion at an April 29 hearing (about which more below) because, she concluded, it would have required her to resolve factual disputes about the defendants\u2019 conduct. What the defendants portrayed as First Amendment issues actually, in the judge\u2019s view, turned on whether the defendants had engaged in criminal conduct or \u201cwhether the defendants were merely present while others engaged in criminal conduct.\u201d Taking the facts alleged in the indictment as true, as she had to when adjudicating a motion to dismiss, Judge Perry determined that \u201cthe indictment is not seeking to punish protected speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet, despite winning on those two issues, the prosecutors found themselves limping to trial. What happened?<\/p>\n

First, on March 12, the government of Sharp and Walsh without explanation, reducing the \u201cBroadview Six\u201d to the \u201cBroadview Four.\u201d\u00a0 The dismissal came too late for Sharp\u2019s Cook County Board candidacy, which\u00a0she suspended in early January due to her \u201chugely stressful\u201d criminal case.<\/p>\n

Second, the following day the government reduced the scope of the \u00a7 372 charge. The indictment had charged that the defendants<\/p>\n

conspired with one another and others, known and unknown, to prevent by force, intimidation, and threat, Agent A, a United States law enforcement officer, from discharging the duties of his office, and to injure him in his person or property on account of his lawful discharge of the duties of his office, and while engaged in the lawful discharge thereof, and to injure his property so as to interrupt, hinder, and impede him in the discharge of his official duties.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On March 13, however, the government that it intended to prove only that the four remaining defendants \u201c[c]onspired with one another and others, known and unknown, to prevent by force and intimidation, Agent A, a United States law enforcement officer, from discharging the duties of his office.\u201d\u00a0 As revised, the case no longer involved any \u201cthreat\u201d against the officer or effort to \u201cinjure\u201d him or his property.\u00a0 This came weeks after\u00a0the government stated at a Feb. 26 hearing that it had no evidence of any prior coordination among the defendants or with anyone else in relation to the conspiracy; rather, it was a \u201c\u201d<\/p>\n

Four days later, Abughazaleh came in second place in the March 17 congressional primary. At first considered a long shot, her campaign had taken off over the fall and winter\u2014perhaps aided by her confrontations with ICE and her pending prosecution. But she fell just short,\u00a0losing by 3 percent to Evanston mayor Daniel Biss.<\/p>\n

Read more The Invisible Frontline of National Security Governance<\/a><\/p>\n

In light of the revision to the \u00a7 372 charge, the defendants for disclosure of portions of the transcripts of the proceedings before the grand jury that related to the explanation of that count. The defendants noted that \u00a7 372 actually describes several different conspiracy crimes:<\/p>\n

The \u00a7 372 conspiracy statute can be violated through three distinct types of agreements that require proof of, among other things, (1) an agreement to prevent by force, intimidation, or threat an officer from discharging the duties of his office; (2) an agreement to injure an officer in his person or property while carrying out his duties; or (3) an agreement to injure property so as to interrupt, hinder, impede, or obstruct an officer in the discharge of his official duties.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now that the government had limited itself to proving only the first of these crimes, the defendants wanted to check whether the grand jury had been properly instructed on its elements. The defense feared that the \u201cthe Grand Jury may not have been properly instructed that each \u00a7 372 clause constitutes a distinct, separate offense with its own elements, and\/or that the Grand Jury did not indict on the first clause of \u00a7 372.\u201d The defense suggested that \u201cthe Grand Jury may not have had the elements of the first clause of \u00a7 372 correctly described to them, or had elements of each of the three clauses incorrectly blended together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The that the government (which did not object) submit by April 23 the relevant portions of the grand jury transcripts for the judge to review and determine whether to disclose the pages to the defense. A hearing was set for April 29.<\/p>\n

To everyone\u2019s surprise, at that hearing the lead prosecutor, William Hogan, by saying \u201cI think that we\u2019re going to find that that issue is moot\u201d because \u201cwe\u2019re going to move to dismiss\u201d the \u00a7 372 count. Later that day, the government that dropped the \u00a7 372 charge. The government did not say why<\/em> it was dropping the charge, which seemed to lend credence to the defendants\u2019 suspicion that the grand jury was, in fact, improperly instructed. Despite dismissal of the \u00a7 372 charge, the defendants\u00a0still wanted the grand jury instructions. As the defendants , the prosecutors had redacted the grand jury transcript that they provided to the judge. \u201cRedacting portions of a transcript only being viewed by a federal judge in camera <\/em>and ex parte <\/em>raises numerous red flags,\u201d they argued, \u201cespecially after months of the government fighting the disclosure of the transcripts at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defendants also found it highly suspicious that the government happened to dismiss the felony charge when it did.<\/p>\n

This remarkable about-face, abandoning a high-profile indictment rather than submit to scrutiny its conduct before the grand jury comes at a time of mounting national distrust in the Department of Justice\u2019s use of the grand jury process. The timing is likely no coincidence. In just the past few weeks, the government has secured indictments against a former FBI Director based on an Instagram photograph of seashells on a beach, and against a notable civil rights organization. These actions only underscore the growing concern that the grand jury is being wielded not as an instrument of justice, but as a tool of unchecked prosecutorial power meant to persecute any perceived enemies of the current White House.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The defendants surmised either that prosecutors misinstructed the jury on the law, failed to instruct the jury on the law, or that there were \u201cinteractions between the AUSA and the grand jury which [were] otherwise improper or prejudicial.\u201d On May 18 Judge Perry agreed to review the full unredacted grand jury transcripts whose disclosure the defendants sought.<\/p>\n

Things Fall Apart<\/strong><\/p>\n

On May 20, with the trial set to begin in just six days, Judge Perry : \u201cAny AUSA who participated in the decision to redact portions of the grand jury transcripts, whether on the trial team or at the supervisory level, is ordered to appear in person\u201d the following day for a hearing on the defendants\u2019 motion for the transcripts\u2019 disclosure. What was going on?<\/p>\n

The prosecutors showed up the following day as ordered. So did defense counsel. Judge Perry started off by saying that she believed the grand jury had been accurately instructed. Her concerns lay elsewhere. \u201cI was incredibly shocked by the redactions that were made,\u201d she said. \u201cI have never seen the types of prosecutorial behavior before a grand jury that I saw in those transcripts,\u201d despite having read\u00a0 \u201chundreds, if not thousands,\u201d of grand jury transcripts<\/p>\n

Perry noted several problems based upon her review of the unredacted transcript. First, prosecutors had engaged in improper \u201cvouching\u201d to the grand jury, in which the prosecutor \u201cput[] her personal credibility and trustworthiness on the line in support of the charges.\u201d Second, she found \u201cimproper prosecutorial communications of a substantive nature with the grand jurors outside of the grand jury room.\u201d Third, the prosecutor \u201cexcus[ed] grand jurors who disagreed with the government’s case from the deliberations.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does this mean? \u201cVouching\u201d is when prosecutors tell jurors, essentially, to trust them rather than to rely on their independent assessment of the evidence or of witness credibility. It is especially pernicious in the grand jury context, where defense counsel is absent. Talking to grand jurors about a case outside of the grand jury room is self-evidently wrong\u2014as is kicking out grand jurors who disagree with you. As to the latter issue, it appears that after the first day\u2019s presentation the grand jury voted not to indict. The prosecutor then apparently told grand jurors who had \u201cmade up their minds already,\u201d in the judge\u2019s words, not to participate the next day.<\/p>\n

And the judge noted one further concern:<\/p>\n

Which brings me to problem Number 4, which is the fact that all of this was redacted out of the versions of the transcripts that I got. And frankly, it is that that I find the most problematic. Mistakes happen. They happen to all of us. But as I tell my children, you own it. You admit to it. You apologize for it, and you move on. What you do not do is hide it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perry noted her earlier refusal to grant defendants discovery that might support their claim of vindictive prosecution had been based on the lack of evidence that anyone outside<\/em> the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office had acted improperly. But now she had evidence that persons inside <\/em>the prosecutor\u2019s office had done so. She said she would allow defendants to brief the issue again if they so chose. She also noted the possibility of \u201csanctions for prosecutorial misconduct and for potential ethical violations, including lack of candor to the Court.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next week\u2019s trial date was off. Counsel discussed how much time would be needed to brief anticipated defense motions\u2014including a motion to dismiss. The judge announced her intention to release the transcript of the day\u2019s hearing (later in the day a reporter ).<\/p>\n

After a brief recess, the government returned with the chief lawyer of the Northern District of Illinois, U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros. He stood up as soon as court was called into session\u2014and moved to dismiss the case with prejudice. The judge granted the motion immediately. For the second time in a month, prosecutors had taken a knee: first dismissing the felony count, and now the misdemeanor. By now it was clear that prosecutors had dismissed the felony count in a failed effort to bury the misconduct that led to the dismissal of the misdemeanor count. Boutros didn\u2019t say why he now pulled the plug entirely, but given the judge\u2019s ire and possible sanctions against his office, he may have figured that it was best to sacrifice what had shrunk to a misdemeanor case to avoid having defense counsel also at his throat.<\/p>\n

Even so, Boutros could not resist taking one further dig at the defendants. The \u201cconduct that took place at Broadview,\u201d he said, was \u201cunacceptable in a civilized society.\u201d The judge was underwhelmed. \u201cYou are significantly undercutting your mea culpa here,\u201d she said, \u201cby standing behind the charges and continuing to vilify these particular defendants.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case was over\u2014at least for the defendants. \u201cHopefully,\u201d Judge Perry said, \u201cthey will never have to come back to this building again unless it’s voluntarily so.\u201d For the prosecutors, facing possible sanctions, the hardest part of the case might lie ahead.<\/p>\n

Other Operation Midway Blitz Prosecutions<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Broadview case is not the only Operation Midway Blitz prosecution to collapse. According to\u00a0a Chicago Sun-Times tracker, prosecutors have accused 27 others of nonimmigration crimes related to the operation, almost all involving alleged incidents of interfering with federal law enforcement. All but three cases, of which one is solely a misdemeanor, and another was just filed yesterday, have been resolved. Of the 24 completed cases, 14 were dismissed outright by prosecutors. An additional three\u2014charged in connection with a protest at Broadview\u00a0one day after the Broadview Six\u2019s protest\u2014were dismissed after a grand jury refused to hand up indictments. ( in Chicago, such refusal by a grand jury \u201cwas virtually unheard of in this district until Operation Midway Blitz. The last and only one the Court can remember was from the early part of this century.\u201d) Another four cases resulted in deferred-prosecution agreements, pursuant to which charges will be dropped if over the next six months the defendants abide by the law, perform community service, and fulfill other minimal conditions. The only case to have gone to trial\u2014an indictment for soliciting the murder of Gregory Bovino\u2014resulted in an acquittal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Only two of the 24 cases so far completed have resulted in convictions: one man, originally accused of firing upon Border Patrol agents, pleaded guilty to\u00a0illegal firearm possession; another, originally charged with, pleaded guilty to\u00a0essentially the same facts but to a lesser crime,\u00a0misprision of felony, and is\u00a0reportedly expected to avoid prison. (In the latter case, the judge has deferred acceptance of the plea agreement until she can review the.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

The most egregious case may have been that of Marimar Martinez, a 30-year-old Chicago schoolteacher who, while observing Border Patrol operations on Oct. 4, allegedly struck agents and then attempted to block their car from leaving. An agent then shot her five times. The Department of Homeland Security immediately put out a release calling her a \u201cdomestic terrorist\u201d; the Department of Justice\u00a0filed \u00a7 111 charges against her the next day. But on Nov. 20, prosecutors dropped the case completely, without explanation. Over the government\u2019s objections, the judge subsequently ordered the release of videos from the agents\u2019 body-worn cameras. The videos indicated that the agents\u2019 accounts were not accurate, that Martinez was not responsible for contact with the government vehicle, and that there was no basis for the shooting. Martinez\u00a0is now pursuing a Federal Torts Claims Act case against the government; the agent who shot her was\u00a0placed on administrative leave.<\/p>\n

The court tallies tell a very different story from the one then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told when he visited the FBI\u2019s Chicago field office two weeks before a grand jury indicted the Broadview Six.\u00a0Blanche said that Chicago is \u201ca kind of ground zero in an escalating assault on law enforcement.” He added that \u201cwhat we were seeing is a tremendous effort, an organized effort, by domestic terrorists to actually injure and hurt folks in this room, the men and women on the streets that were just doing their jobs.”<\/p>\n

But prosecutors\u2019 record in court suggests nothing of the sort. In fact, it looks like Chicago became\u2014as would Minneapolis soon afterwards\u2014more like \u201ca kind of ground zero\u201d for a government assault on the rule of law.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n

\u201cI do believe deeply in the presumption of regularity and that most government attorneys are doing the best they can to do the right thing,\u201d Judge Perry said yesterday. \u201cThat trust has been broken.\u201d She appeared to be talking only about this specific case, but her words resonated more broadly. As the Department of Justice faces unparalleled headwinds around the nation due to politicization gone wild, the presumption of regularity is far less likely to adhere to its decisions. And when, as here, prosecutors make bad choices, it is likelier that those decisions will be ascribed to politicization as opposed to laziness, overwhelm, or a simple desire to win at all costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Broadview case began as a warning shot\u2014proof, the government insisted, that no one was above the law when it came to interfering with federal officers. But it ended as proof of something else entirely: that when the Justice Department bends itself to political purpose, the rule of law it claims to defend is the first casualty.<\/p>\n

Read more R.I.P. Chicago Protester Prosecution (2025-2026)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How a felony case against the \u201cBroadview Six\u201d dwindled to a misdemeanor charge against the \u201cBroadview Four\u201d\u2014and then suddenly died.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nR.I.P. Chicago Protester Prosecution (2025-2026) - National Consumer Reports<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nationalconsumerreportss.com\/?p=21\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"R.I.P. 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