2026-07-30T10:03:03.699Z / 路透社
概要
- 特朗普政府对被控袭击或阻碍执法人员的抗议者采取了强硬起诉立场
- 但路透社的调查发现，检察官撤销案件的比例远高于正常水平
- 即便案件被撤销，涉案人员仍报告称丢了工作、遭到网络骚扰并承担了律师费
7月30日电 —— 克里斯蒂安·加西亚承认，去年夏天在洛杉矶附近一场移民抗议活动中，他曾向守卫联邦大楼的警察扔过一个水瓶。
他说，那是个空瓶子，没打到任何人，反倒被风刮了回来砸到了自己。然而，这位32岁的业余摄影师还是被特工逮捕，关押了三天，并被控一项最高可判处一年监禁的罪名。他表示，老板接到调查人员的电话后，他便丢掉了保安和秘密 shopper（注：此处指兼职暗访购物员）两份工作。
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随后，检方未作任何公开解释便撤销了对他的指控。
特朗普政府已对至少851名被控袭击或阻碍联邦执法人员的人员提起刑事诉讼，但随后以异常高的比例撤销了案件。路透社审查联邦法院记录后发现，截至目前已办结的此类案件中，有31%以撤销告终。而根据联邦司法中心汇编的记录，所有联邦刑事案件中通常仅有8%会以撤销结案。
路透社收集了2025年1月至今年3月期间所有被控袭击或阻碍联邦执法人员案件的记录，并追踪了这些起诉的后续进展。其中许多指控源于政府的强硬移民政策，但案件也涉及对其他联邦雇员的袭击，比如邮政工作人员。
路透社发现，针对移民抗议活动中被拘留人员的起诉尤其容易被撤销，在5月底前办结的86起此类案件中，约有45%被撤销。
美国国土安全部发言人表示，该部门领导层明确传达了“任何袭击或阻碍执法人员的人都将受到法律的最严厉起诉”的立场。司法部发言人基尔斯滕·佩尔斯表示，检察官应当让此类袭击者承担责任，但“如果案件中发现了从轻处罚情节，检察官也必须采取适当行动告知法庭，在某些情况下可以降罪或撤销指控。”
即便案件被撤销，司法部的指控仍给一些人带来了沉重代价。路透社采访了六名涉案人员，他们均表示尽管指控被撤销，自己还是丢了工作、支付了律师费，在某些情况下，联邦官员公开他们的被捕消息后，还收到了大量网络威胁。
加西亚说，即便检方撤销了对他的指控，他也没能拿回工作。他还表示，自己被特工没收的手机也没能要回来。
“感觉我完全没有得到任何公正，”加西亚说，“我的人生在一天之内全变了。”
最初的起诉文书称，加西亚“被看到向警察投掷物品”，而人群中的其他人则投掷了“包括石块和水瓶在内的 projectile（注：此处指抛射物）”，并击中了警察的盾牌。
路透社审查了全美数千份法院文件，并采访了15多名调查人员、检察官和涉案人员，了解特朗普政府针对与执法人员发生冲突人员的行动及其后果。
他们的描述显示，特朗普政府经常将那些检察官称历史上不会导致逮捕或重罪指控的冲突事件升格为联邦案件。
其中包括一名将SUV低速倒车撞上特工车辆的女子；一名向特工发起拳击挑战但未出拳的男子；还有一名在抗议活动中跳上国土安全部特工车辆的男子。而此前广为人知的一起案件是，华盛顿一名男子扔出的三明治弹开了一名移民特工的防弹衣，他也因此遭到指控。
路透社审查的案件中，也有一些袭击情节严重，几乎在任何政府治下都会被起诉，比如明尼苏达州一名女子被控在1月咬掉一名联邦特工指尖的案件。
但根据法院记录和熟悉此次行动的人士透露，特朗普政府追查被控袭警人员的规模和强度，以及其降低此类案件起诉门槛的做法，都与以往司法部的做法大相径庭。
两名熟悉相关指令的匿名官员透露，司法部去年曾指示检察官，对这类案件拒绝起诉的决定必须向华盛顿方面作出解释。这给检察官带来了压力，迫使他们接手原本可能被驳回的案件。
代理美国司法部长托德·布兰奇今年5月在亚利桑那州对移民官员表示，司法部将起诉任何针对执法人员的袭击行为，“无论情况如何”。
撤销的指控
联邦检察官几乎总能胜诉。根据联邦司法中心的记录，大多数年份里，约90%被控联邦犯罪的人员都会被定罪。
特朗普政府掀起的袭警指控潮是一个显著例外：路透社审查的481起已办结案件中，检察官仅在65%的案件中获得了定罪。绝大多数案件都是应检察官的请求被撤销的。
路透社审查的851起案件中，其余案件仍处于待审状态。
曾担任联邦检察官和联邦调查局袭警调查探员的凯尔·博因顿表示，高撤销率表明当局“行动太快，没时间有效履行职责”。
在大多数案件中，检察官未说明撤销指控的理由，仅称是“为了司法利益”。
这也是他们给莉齐·罗斯的解释。今年1月，罗斯被控在明尼阿波利斯尾随一辆载有移民特工的SUV，并倒车撞上了该车。一名邻居拍下了事故视频，画面显示碰撞速度很低。
国土安全部在社交媒体上发布了她的入狱照，并承诺“我们不会被恐吓”。她的照片也出现在了新闻报道中。她说，大量威胁涌入她的社交账号，以至于她不得不离家，将两个孩子送到父亲那里生活。
“这件事吞噬了我们的生活，”她说，“每天都是如此。”
42岁的罗斯被明尼阿波利斯一家非营利组织停职。
公信力受损
当检察官撤销对芝加哥21岁的露西·马祖尔的袭警指控时，法官指出，指控她的特工曾宣誓称“已审查了佐证其断言的视频证据”，即马祖尔曾抓住他的手臂并拒捕。但法官表示，检方撤销案件的一个因素是随身摄像机 footage（注：此处指录像）。
四名现任和前任执法官员表示，检察官愿意接手此类案件——尤其是当特工的陈述被证明不准确时——有可能破坏法官通常对政府律师的信任。
去年9月，芝加哥当地民主党政治官员迈克尔·拉比特参加了在布罗德韦尔附近一座移民海关执法局（ICE）处理设施外举行的晨间抗议活动，该设施是该地区政府移民镇压行动的一个焦点。
他说，车辆经过时，抗议者按照布罗德韦尔警方的指示让路。但他表示，一辆ICE车辆并未等待抗议者清空道路。一段现场视频显示，拉比特的手放在车身上约30秒，车辆随后缓慢向前行驶。
大约一个月后，正在葡萄牙和妻子庆祝30周年结婚纪念日的他，接到了联邦调查局特工的语音留言，被告知他已被起诉，需自首。
指控包括阻碍特工车辆的轻罪，以及密谋阻碍或伤害执法人员的重罪，拉比特称这些指控“荒谬可笑”。
检方在5月初撤销了密谋指控，但坚持要求他就阻碍ICE车辆一案接受审判。
审判定档前几天，芝加哥一名联邦法官严厉批评了检察官对该案的处理方式。法官指责他们为偏袒己方而重组联邦大陪审团，排除了不太可能投票起诉的人员；不当暗示陪审员可以依赖检察官的可信度而非证据；以及在大陪审团会议室之外与陪审员沟通。
司法部最终撤销了所有指控。检察官罕见地表示，他们不会反对辩方提出的由司法部支付拉比特和其他与此次抗议相关指控的被告部分律师费的请求。
“我确实深信程序正义推定，也相信大多数政府律师都在尽力做正确的事，”法官埃布尔·佩里说，“但这种信任已经被打破了。”
布拉德·希思、克里斯蒂娜·库克、M.B.佩尔和本杰明·莱瑟报道；安德鲁·古德斯沃德和蕾妮·希克曼补充报道；克雷格·蒂姆伯格和布莱恩·特弗诺编辑
我们的标准：路透社信托原则
Trump’s DOJ charged hundreds with assaulting officers. Many cases were dropped, but the damage was done
2026-07-30T10:03:03.699Z / Reuters
Summary
- The Trump administration has aggressively pursued protestors accused of assaulting or impeding law enforcement
- Prosecutors, however, are dropping the cases at rates far higher than usual, a Reuters review found
- Even when cases are dropped, people accused report losing jobs, online harassment and legal bills
July 30 – Christian Garcia admits that he threw a water bottle toward officers guarding a federal building near Los Angeles during an immigration protest last summer.
The plastic bottle was empty, he said, and hit no one but Garcia himself – the wind blew it back at him. Yet Garcia, a 32-year-old amateur photographer, was arrested by agents, jailed for three days and charged with a crime that could have kept him in prison for up to a year. He said he lost both of his jobs, as a security guard and an undercover shopper, after his bosses told him they had been called by investigators.
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Then, with no public explanation, prosecutors dropped the case.
The Trump administration has brought criminal charges against at least 851 people accused of attacking or impeding federal officers, only to abandon them at an unusually high rate. A Reuters review of federal court records found that 31% of these cases that have been completed so far have ended in dismissal. That compares to 8% of all federal criminal cases that typically end in dismissal, according to records compiled by the Federal Judicial Center.
Reuters gathered the records of every person charged with assaulting or impeding federal officers between January 2025 and March, then followed what happened to those prosecutions. Many of the charges stemmed from the administration’s aggressive immigration push, but the cases also included assaults on other federal employees, such as postal workers.
Prosecutors fared especially poorly when bringing charges against people detained during immigration protests, dropping about 45% of the 86 such cases that had been completed by the end of May, Reuters found.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said its leadership has made clear that “anyone who assaults or obstructs law enforcement will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” Justice Department spokesperson Kiersten Pels said prosecutors should hold people accountable for such assaults, but “if there are mitigating factors identified in a case, then prosecutors must also act appropriately to inform the court, and in some cases downgrade or drop charges.”
The DOJ’s charges have imposed a steep cost on some people, even when the cases are dropped. Reuters interviewed a half dozen people who, despite the abandoned charges, reported lost jobs, legal fees and in some cases a flurry of online threats that arrived after federal officials publicized their arrests.
Garcia said he couldn’t get his jobs back even after prosecutors dismissed his case. He said he also never got back the phone an agent seized.
“It’s like I got no justice whatsoever,” Garcia said. “My whole life changed in one day.”
The original charging document said Garcia was “observed throwing an object” at officers while others in a crowd threw projectiles “including rocks and water bottles” that struck officers’ shields.
Reuters reviewed thousands of court files nationwide and interviewed more than 15 investigators, prosecutors and suspects about the Trump administration’s campaign against people who clashed with law enforcement and its consequences.
Their accounts show the Trump administration regularly opted to make federal cases out of encounters that prosecutors said historically would not have led to arrests or serious charges.
Among them are a woman who backed her SUV into an agent’s car at low speed; a man who challenged an agent to box but threw no punches; and another who jumped on a Homeland Security agent’s car during a protest. And they famously brought charges against a Washington man who threw a sandwich that bounced off an immigration agent’s body armor.
Other assaults in the cases reviewed by Reuters were serious and would almost certainly have been prosecuted under any administration, including the case of a woman in Minnesota accused of biting off the tip of a federal agent’s finger in January.
But the scale and intensity of the Trump administration’s pursuit of alleged officer assaults breaks from past DOJ practice, as does its lowered bar for bringing such cases to court, according to court records and people familiar with the effort.
The Justice Department instructed prosecutors last year that decisions to turn down such cases had to be explained to Washington, two officials familiar with the instructions said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. That pressured prosecutors to take cases that might otherwise have been rejected.
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche told immigration officials in Arizona in May that the department would prosecute any assault on an officer “no matter what.”
DROPPED CHARGES
Federal prosecutors almost always win the cases they bring. Most years, about 90% of the people charged with a federal crime are convicted, according to records kept by the Federal Judicial Center.
The Trump administration’s spate of assault charges has been a notable exception, with prosecutors securing convictions in 65% of the 481 cases Reuters examined that had been completed. The vast majority of the cases were dismissed at prosecutors’ request.
The remaining cases among the 851 reviewed by Reuters are still pending.
The high dismissal rate suggests authorities “are moving so fast that they don’t have time to do their job effectively,” said Kyle Boynton, a former federal prosecutor and FBI agent with experience in assault investigations.
In most cases, prosecutors provided no reason for dropping charges, other than saying that it was “in the interests of justice.”
That was the explanation they gave Lizzie Rose, who was charged in January with backing her car into an SUV carrying immigration agents after following it through Minneapolis. A neighbor captured the incident on video, which shows a low-speed collision.
The Homeland Security Department
posted her mugshot on social media with a promise that “we will not be intimidated.” Her picture appeared in news reports as well. Enough threats poured into her own feeds that she left her house and sent her two children to live with their father, she said.
“It consumed our lives,” she said. “It was every day.”
Rose, 42, was put on leave from her job at a Minneapolis nonprofit.
SHAKEN CREDIBILITY
When prosecutors threw out their assault charges against 21-year-old Luci Mazur in Chicago, the judge noted that the agent who charged her “had sworn under oath that the affiant had reviewed video evidence that corroborated” his assertion that Mazur had grabbed his arm and resisted arrest. Body-camera footage however, was a factor in the decision by prosecutors to drop the case, the judge said.
Four current and former law enforcement officials said prosecutors’ willingness to take on such cases – especially when agents’ accounts are revealed to be inaccurate – risks undermining the trust that judges routinely afford government lawyers.
Last September, Michael Rabbitt, a local Democratic political official in Chicago, attended a morning protest outside an ICE processing facility in nearby Broadview that had become a flashpoint during the administration’s immigration crackdown in the region.
As cars passed, he said, the protesters moved out of the way to let them through, as directed by Broadview Police. But he said an ICE vehicle did not wait for protesters to clear out of the way. A video of the incident shows Rabbitt with his hand on the side of the car for about 30 seconds as it slowly moved forward.
About a month later, while visiting Portugal with his wife for their 30-year anniversary, he got a voicemail from an FBI agent telling him he had been indicted and to turn himself in.
The charges included a misdemeanor for impeding 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 insisted that he go to trial for blocking the ICE vehicle.
Days before the trial was scheduled, a federal judge in Chicago assailed prosecutors for their handling of the case. The judge accused them of stacking a federal grand jury in their favor by excusing people who were unlikely to vote to indict; improperly suggesting that jurors could rely on the prosecutor’s credibility rather than the evidence; and communicating with the jurors outside the grand jury room.
The Justice Department dismissed all the charges. In a rare move, prosecutors said they would not contest a defense request for the DOJ to pay some of the legal fees for Rabbitt and other defendants charged in connection with the same protest.
“I do believe deeply in the presumption of regularity and that most government attorneys are doing the best they can to do the right thing,” Judge April Perry said. “That trust has been broken.”
Reporting by Brad Heath, Kristina Cooke, M.B. Pell and Benjamin Lesser; additional reporting by Andrew Goudsward and Renee Hickman; editing by Craig Timberg and Brian Thevenot
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.