SF DA Brooke Jenkins released the couple dozen people who were in jail for blocking the Golden Gate Bridge in Monday's Gaza ceasefire protest, and they haven’t even been charged, though Jenkins is vowing they’ll be investigated for possible felony charges.

We know how Governor Gavin Newsom feels about Monday’s Golden Gate Bridge protest calling for a Gaza ceasefire, a demonstration that held up traffic for four hours. “I certainly respect the cause around the ceasefire,” Newsom told reporters Tuesday, according to the Chronicle. “But I think there’s a better way of expressing it than denying people the ability to get to work, someone in an emergency that can’t get to their destination.” Newsom added that that “people need to be held to account for their actions.”

But it’s a little more complicated for SF District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who had 26 of the 38 people arrested in custody at SF County Jail once the protest was cleared. KTVU reports that those people were released Tuesday afternoon, and they weren't even charged with anything (yet). She says she needs more evidence from the California Highway Patrol (CHP), and had no choice to release the protesters because her office faced a 4 pm Tuesday charging deadline.

"Unfortunately, in order for us to make a decision on what would ordinarily be the 48-hour clock, it should not be sufficient legally," Jenkins told KTVU. "So it puts us having to make the decision today. I know that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to folks. But unfortunately, because they were arrested before 4 pm yesterday, it moves up the clock a bit."

Most of the charges would be misdemeanors, like unlawful assembly, unlawful stopping on a bridge, and resisting arrest. But the CHP is also calling for felony conspiracy charges against those who had an organizational role. And KGO reports Jenkins may throw the book at some of them (or all of them?) with false imprisonment charges that could be charged as a felony, based on keeping motorists trapped on the bridge.

Jenkins seems to be asking for the help of those very motorists on that one. Her office announced on Twitter “Anyone who was detained against their will (falsely imprisoned) on the Golden Gate Bridge on 4/15/24 is urged to contact the CHP at 415.924.1105 or via email at [email protected].”

Jenkins may be in a bind, though, because of the very lenient sentence of just five hours of community service she’d previously levied against the protesters who blocked the Bay Bridge in November. It’s a tough needle to thread to say that Monday’s protesters should be charged more extensively, given that the blockade on the bridge lasted for approximately the same amount of time as the November demonstration.

There is also the matter of the 12 protesters arrested in Oakland during Monday’s simultaneous protests blocking parts of I-880, which also held up traffic for more than four hours. (Seven were arrested for the barrel blockade on I-880, and five were arrested for blocking the 7th Street off-ramp from 880.) Alameda County DA Pamela Price has not announced charges for those 12 people, though the Chronicle reports “Price’s office told the Chronicle on Monday that protesters could be charged if they had broken the law.”

Related: CHP Reveals Concrete Drum Tactic Used By Protesters Which Hindered Their Removal Monday [SFist]

Image via CHP