Charges have been dropped against two Chicago men — one a freelance photographer — arrested during a January Immigration and Customs Enforcement protest.
Matthew Kaplan was arrested and charged with criminal trespassing, resisting law enforcement and disorderly conduct during the January 18 protest at the Gary/Chicago International Airport. A second man, Nicholas Andrew, was charged with Kaplan but was also charged with obstructing traffic, according to online court records, and both were scheduled for trial April 2 in Gary City Court.
Kaplan said late Friday night via text that he’d received word of the dismissal late last week, but his attorney instructed him not to say anything until the paperwork came through. Filed March 22, the Motion to Dismiss said the charges were dismissed “In the Interest of Justice.”
“I still don’t understand why the police made any arrests at what was a peaceful protest, but I’m relieved and grateful the Lake County prosecutors saw fit to dismiss the case,” Kaplan said.
Kaplan, 69, told the Post-Tribune as well as in an account on a social media page of his that he was among 30 to 40 protestors who walked from a South Shore Train stop around a mile away along Industrial Road to the airport, from where people getting deported are flown out. The protestors carried signs that read, “Abolish ICE,” “Education Not Deportation” and “No Human is Illegal,” and were a bit rowdy and loud with their chanting, but no one was violent, he said.
When they got to the airport, one of the protestors tried to affix a banner to the chain-link fence, but airport employees stopped them, Kaplan said. After about 10 minutes, the group started marching back to the train station when at least 10 Gary Police squad cars showed up and officers yelled for them to get off the road.
The group eventually moved, Kaplan said, but as soon as they got onto the grass on the shoulder, Gary officers started “pushing people down and arresting them,” he said. As he was taking pictures of the situation, an officer arrested him; a friend of his grabbed his camera equipment as he was cuffed.
Kaplan spent about two hours in lockup at the Gary City Jail, where he said he wasn’t mistreated in any way. Along with the criminal trespassing, Kaplan was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting law enforcement, according to court documents, and will appear at 9 a.m. Wednesday before Gary City Judge Deirdre Monroe.
“I’m almost 70, and I’ve been photographing demonstrations for years now. Even though I didn’t have a press pass, I felt like it was clear that I was acting like a journalist,” Kaplan said. “As I was sitting there in lockup, I was feeling that, however bad this is for me, I was pretty sure I was going home. But there are a lot of people who are much more afraid than I am right now.”
Neither Gary Mayor Eddie Melton nor the Gary Police Department responded to the Post-Tribune’s multiple requests for comment.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
