Seven Golden Gate Bridge protesters were convicted Thursday on misdemeanor charges stemming from their 2024 blockade, but the jury deadlocked on felony conspiracy — a split verdict that both prosecutors and defense claimed as a victory.

The activists, who blocked southbound traffic for four hours to protest U.S. military support for Israel, face up to five years in prison each. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins called the outcome a vindication of her office’s commitment to public safety, while defense attorneys said the hung felony count shows the overreach of the prosecution and vowed to appeal.

Seven activists who blocked the Golden Gate Bridge for four hours in an April 2024 protest against U.S. military aid to Israel were convicted Thursday on a string of misdemeanor charges, but a San Francisco jury deadlocked on the most serious felony conspiracy count — a partial victory that both sides claimed as they left the courthouse.

The defendants — Bhavika Anandpura, River Allen, Rocky Chau, Sara Cantor, Conrad de Jesus, Sarah Ferrell, and Em Tillotson — face up to five years in prison each after being found guilty of false imprisonment, obstruction of a thoroughfare, unlawful assembly, and other misdemeanors. The jury hung 10–2 in favor of guilt on felony conspiracy and 11–1 against guilt on misdemeanor trespassing, prompting Judge Teresa Caffese to declare a mistrial on those two counts.

The April 15, 2024 demonstration, organized under the banner “A15,” saw protesters drive onto the bridge from Marin County, stop their cars across all four southbound lanes, and extend their arms through pipes to physically block traffic for about four hours. Twenty-six people were originally arrested; charges against most were dropped or reduced, leaving these seven as the main targets of District Attorney Brooke Jenkins’s prosecution.

“My office is committed to enforcing the law on behalf of San Franciscans,” Jenkins said in a statement after the verdict. “We are committed to keeping everyone who visits, works and lives in San Francisco safe at all times, which includes those who use our roads and bridges. We respect and defend the right to free speech and peaceful protest. But constitutional rights carry responsibilities, and all individuals are expected to exercise those rights within the bounds of the law.”

Defense attorneys struck a defiant tone at a press conference on the steps of City Hall, framing the hung jury on conspiracy as a rejection of the DA’s aggressive approach.

“We do not fight solely to win. We fight to fight,” said Deputy Public Defender Nuha Abusamra, who represented defendant River Allen. She called blocking traffic for a few hours “the bare minimum that we should be doing as American citizens” while U.S. tax dollars funded the war in Gaza.

Abusamra added that attorneys plan to appeal the misdemeanor false‑imprisonment convictions later this month. “Despite a history of protest on the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and California Highway Patrol took the unprecedented step of using social media to solicit people to come forward to seek restitution,” she said in a joint statement with Deputy Public Defender Anthony Gedeon, who represented Em Tillotson. “The District Attorney then pursued egregious felony criminal charges that the jury hung on.”

In the courtroom, the verdicts were met with audible dismay. As Judge Caffese thanked the jury, rounds of coughs and throat‑clearing rose from the gallery, which was nearly uniformly supportive of the defendants. After the judge ordered the room cleared, shouts of “Shame!” echoed in the hallway, followed by chants of “No justice, no peace” and “Free Palestine.”

Prosecutors had argued the protesters knew their actions were illegal, pointing to evidence they declined to seek a permit and chained themselves together to make removal harder. Assistant District Attorney Angela Roze told jurors during closing arguments that while the protesters’ motive may have been to draw attention to Gaza, “their intent was to stop traffic, and they knew the crimes that they were going to engage in were illegal.”

The defense countered that the protesters acted out of moral conviction and that participating in civil disobedience is not a criminal conspiracy. “The message is their intent,” Abusamra told the jury last month. “The message shows a lack of criminal thought … The message frees them. The message is protected by the law.”

Sentencing is scheduled for August. The DA’s office said it is evaluating its options on the deadlocked counts.