Charges dropped against couple in Broadview immigration protest after federal grand jury refuses to indict

[Jilly_in_VA]

A federal grand jury has refused to indict a Chicago couple arrested during a violent protest outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview last month, a rare move that prompted prosecutors to abruptly drop the case and signals government overreach in bringing the charges in the first place.

After the charges were officially dropped in court Wednesday morning, Richard Kling, the attorney for one of the defendants, called the grand jury’s rejection of the case an “extraordinary happenstance,” especially in Chicago’s federal court.

“I think the grand jurors in the Northern District (of Illinois) stood up for the First Amendment right to protest, and also reject Gestapo-like troops on the streets of Chicago and neighboring communities,” Kling said.

Ray Collins, 21, and Jocelyne Robledo, 30, a husband and wife from the South Side of Chicago, were each allegedly carrying loaded guns with them as they scuffled with officers who were trying to widen a security perimeter during a melee in late September.

Both have lawful permits to carry the firearms, but they were facing felony charges of assaulting or resisting a federal officer in performance of official duties, which carries up to 8 years in prison.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/08/charges-dropped-couple-broadview-protest-grand-jury/

Feds keep coming up with weak cases.....

[rzemanfl]

1. Grand juries don't believe ICE and the DOJ.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Prior to about 4 months ago, when did you ever hear of a grand jury refusing to indict?

Mostly seemed hand-in-glove with prosecutors.

[obamanut2012]

5. Very rarely

The ham sandwich trope was pretty accurate.

[Frasier Balzov]

6. I was surprised when Comey was indicted.

[OLDMDDEM]

3. Grand juries are doing the right thing and no indicting people for crimes allegedly committed that were

alleged witnessed by ICE. There have been many of these cases that were not indicted. I wonder how many more are coming.

[MichMan]

4. Self defense?

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. Deadline Legal Blog-Grand jury rejection of Trump's 'law and order' spreads to Chicago ICE enforcement

It’s the latest example in Trump’s second term of what was previously an extremely rare phenomenon of grand jurors refusing to return indictments.

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/chicago-ice-trump-grand-juries-indictments-law-order-rcna236391

Americans across the country from Washington to Los Angeles have made it clear that they reject the Trump administration’s notion of “law and order,” with grand jurors refusing to return indictments in a series of cases alleging assaults on law enforcement during protests. Now, as President Donald Trump agitates against Chicago in his Republican administration’s targeting of Democratic-run cities and states, federal grand jurors in Illinois have declined to approve charges against two people who were accused of assaulting agents in the Chicago area.

That led federal prosecutors in the Northern District of Illinois to move to dismiss the charges Wednesday. Immigration officials had touted the arrests in the case last month, writing on social media that the defendants “will be prosecuted and held accountable.”

While the facts of every case are different and grand jury deliberations are secret, the bottom-line pattern of these rejections is impossible to ignore. It’s difficult to overstate how rare it is for grand juries to reject indictments — yet, these days, it’s not so unusual in the Trump Justice Department. Whether grand jurors are finding that prosecutors are overcharging, or grand jurors are refusing to return indictments despite finding sufficient evidence to proceed — or some combination thereof — this ongoing phenomenon is one of the most remarkable developments of Trump’s second term.

The Illinois dismissal coincided with the arraignment of former FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday morning, whose charges Trump himself had demanded. In that case, led by an inexperienced former Trump personal lawyer over the objection of career prosecutors, Washington-area grand jurors in Northern Virginia rejected one of the three counts proposed by the administration. Comey pleaded not guilty.