Charges dismissed against six UNC-Chapel Hill anti-Israel demonstrators
Charges against six pro-Palestine demonstrators at UNC-Chapel Hill were dismissed due to insufficient evidence and difficulties identifying or locating the charging officers.
The district attorney cited the chaotic nature of the arrests, with numerous agencies involved, as contributing to the dismissals.
Six pro-Palestine demonstrators who participated in the encampment erected at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill this spring each had their charges dismissed shortly before they were set to be tried.
The district attorney said that, due to the volatility of the situation (including the moment of the arrests), there was insufficient evidence to bring some of the cases to trial, according to Chapelboro.
“We realized that five of those six we simply didn’t have sufficient evidence to take them to trial,” said Orange County District Attorney Jeff Nieman. “That’s not necessarily because there sufficient facts to prove the crime [didn’t exist], but it boils down to: we either couldn’t ascertain who the charging officer was in those individual cases, or if we could determine who it was, we couldn’t locate them.
“That might sound unusual, but this was an unusual case,” he added. “Thirty-nine cases, all arising from one or two days, lots of people being charged at the same time, there was a chaotic nature to it… and that’s nobody’s fault.”
“There were a lot of people involved… a lot of law enforcement, a lot of suspects in the crimes being processed,” Nieman added. “That — combined with there were a lot of officers from outside agencies… outside the university, outside the county, outside the district — made for a confluence of circumstances that resulted in a few cases [where] we couldn’t quite figure out [which officers] did what to put up witnesses [on the stand] to make the cases.”
More than two dozen cases remain active connected to demonstrations at UNC-Chapel Hill, including of protesters who accepted plea deals for their conduct. In total, 36 people were cited or arrested in connection to the protests, according to The News & Observer.
Earlier in the fall 2024 semester, pro-Palestine demonstrators at UNC vandalized school property.
The university stated at the time: “[A]t least nine academic buildings across campus shouting and attempting to disrupt classes. They also vandalized the interior and exterior of buildings along their way with spray paint and permanent markers. They caused significant damage throughout multiple buildings.”
The group organizing the protest distributed fliers that accused Israel of “genocide, apartheid, & settler colonialism” and stated “no business as usual while UNC is complicit in genocide.”
Campus Reform has contacted the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
