The U.S. Justice Department brought felony assault charges against 102 protesters arrested in four major cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles, for alleged attacks on federal agents. The prosecutions, filed for incidents that occurred in 2025, resulted in convictions in only a small fraction of the cases, with twelve cases moving forward to a verdict.
Federal authorities had charged the demonstrators with assaulting officers who were performing their duties during a series of protests. The defendants faced a range of potential penalties under federal law, and the Department of Justice pursued the cases in federal court across the four cities involved.
According to court records, the majority of the 102 defendants were either acquitted or had the charges dismissed. Only twelve of the cases concluded with a conviction, leaving the outcome for the remaining ninety protesters unresolved in terms of a guilty verdict. The limited number of convictions stands in contrast to the department's historical success rate in federal assault prosecutions, which has typically produced higher conviction percentages.
The result has drawn attention to the challenges of securing verdicts in large-scale protest-related prosecutions. While the Justice Department continues to monitor the remaining cases, the current figures reflect a lower-than-usual rate of successful convictions for federal assault charges stemming from the 2025 protest actions.