Charges have been dropped against seven protesters arrested at U.S. Rep. Jared Golden’s Bangor office in November.
Lawrence Reichard, 65, of Belfast; Robert Shetterly, 76, of Brooksville; Dudley Hendrick, 82, of Deer Isle; Jamila Levasseur, 68, of Waldo; Kristen Salvatore, 66, of Penobscot; Russell Wray, 68, of Hancock; and Stephen Benson, 78, of Surry had been charged with criminal trespassing.
R. Christopher Almy, the district attorney for Penobscot and Piscataquis counties, said Friday that the charges against the seven were dropped because “court action is not necessary.”
The seven protesters gathered inside Golden’s State Street office on Nov. 8, 2023, and when they refused to leave, Bangor police officers were summoned.
The seven protesters were arrested and taken to Penobscot County Jail.
The protesters were calling for a cease-fire and deescalation of violence in Gaza, where the Israeli military is fighting the militant group Hamas following a surprise attack on Oct. 7. The conflict has displaced most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, and most of northern Gaza is now under Israeli military control, according to the Associated Press.
Airstrikes and fighting on the ground have killed more than 22,400 Palestinians, and food and medicine remain in short supply as the war enters its 13th week, the AP reported this week.
Golden, a Democrat who represents Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, drew disapproval from critics of Israel’s war in Gaza when he joined 21 other Democrats in a House vote on Nov. 7, 2023, to censure Democratic U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan — the only Palestinian American in Congress and a co-sponsor of HR 786, a bill calling for a cease-fire and deescalation in the fighting — for comments she made about the war.