When a tear gas canister landed near his feet, Caravello threw it away from the crowd, in a high arc over the federal agents, Taylor said. He later removed a separate canister that had become stuck underneath someone using a wheelchair and tossed it away. Shortly after, Taylor said, an agent snatched him and pinned him to the ground as several other agents piled on top of him. Agents eventually placed him in a car and drove away from the facility, driving through protesters who tried to block them from leaving. Taylor jumped in a truck to try to follow Caravello, but agents threw tear gas through the vehicle’s window, she said. By the time she recovered, Caravello was gone.
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Days after the raid, federal officials accused Caravello of throwing a tear gas canister at U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents, and he was charged with a misdemeanor count of assaulting a federal officer. In an affidavit, Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Virginia Pulido alleges that “the canister came within approximately several feet above law enforcements’ heads” but does not describe any officer being hit or injured by the canister.
Caravello was released after four days in detention, on a $15,000 surety bond. Prosecutors later convened a grand jury to bring a felony charge of assault on a federal officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Caravello found out about the felony charge from friends who learned the news from a post on X by U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli.
Caravello’s trial starts on Tuesday, where his defense is likely to argue that he was protecting himself and others from the tear gas rather than attacking federal agents. “They rolled it at him and some other protesters as they were walking away and he threw back over their heads,” his attorney Knut Johnson said in November after Caravello entered his plea of not guilty.
How is using tear gas on protestors fine but throwing it back is felony assault with a deadly weapon?
Yeah i could never understand this leap in logic, especially in courts. If the government is openly admitting that throwing a tear gas canister at them is assault, the defense should then be able to argue in self defense because the canister was thrown at them, which was admitted to being assault by the prosecution! Especially considering there's a first amendment right to protest, which was being disrupted, everything afterwards should be considered hostile actions of an aggressor.