Cook County State's Attorney's Office Refiles Charges Against NATO Protester

By aaroncynic in News on Aug 3, 2012 3:40PM

A Los Angeles man arrested during protests of the NATO summit in Chicago, who had his case dismissed by a Cook County judge has been indicted again on the same charge as well as another. Danny Johnson, who spent seven days in Cook County Jail after being arrested during an immigrants rights march in May turned himself into police after Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez issued a bench warrant for his arrest. Initially, Cook County Judge Marvin Luckman threw out the case against Johnson more than two months ago for lack of probable cause. Now, Johnson is being held with two counts of aggravated battery.

During his last stay in Cook County jail, the 31-year-old activist held teach ins and explained the Occupy movement to some officers. He told the Sun-Times in May that his time in lock up was “awesome” and wouldn’t speak badly of his time served. Since then, he took part in a national walk-a-thon from San Diego to New York as part of the “Occupy Walk USA.”

Friends and allies of the activist say that Alvarez has her priorities in the wrong place. Micha Philbrook, an activist with Occupy Chicago who helped to organize some of the NATO demonstrations said in a press release “Danny Johnson returned to Chicago to turn himself in because he is innocent and wants to fight these charges. It’s both telling and outrageous that the State’s Attorney is willing to criminalize dissent and re-criminalize a peaceful protester.” Joe Iosbaker, of the Committee Against Political Repression said “Why are we wasting resources persecuting political activists when our city is mired in a crisis of police accountability?”

Johnson was denied bond in Cook County Circuit Court yesterday, and has another hearing scheduled for Aug. 7.

At the time of this writing, the State's Attorney's office has yet to respond to a request for comment.