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MIAMI - A judge dropped charges after
the first jury trial related to a demonstrator arrested during
November's Free Trade Area of the Americas meetings.
County Court Judge Beth Bloom granted
a defense motion to dismiss charges Wednesday against Gan Golan, 30,
after hearing testimony and reviewing evidence from both sides.
Bloom ruled that no reasonable juror could convict Golan based on the what was presented.
Golan, a graduate student at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was arrested Nov. 21 and charged
with failure to obey a police order and resisting arrest without
violence.
He was one of more than 50 people arrested outside the Miami-Dade County Jail during a demonstration over the treatment
of 146 protesters police arrested during the week of the Free Trade
gathering. Officers sprayed gas at some of the demonstrators, accusing
them of refusing orders to disperse.
Bloom dismissed the charges after the defense rested and before the case went to the jury.
"It is not the FTAA protesters
that should be on trial - it's the police," Golan said afterward. "Law
enforcement not only assaulted a group of nonviolent citizens exercising
their First Amendment rights, but also trampled on the Constitution."
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