A new class action lawsuit is targeting protestors who blocked the entry roadway into Chicago O’Hare International Airport in April, snarling traffic for more than three hours as police struggled to remove activists who had connected their arms together in PVC pipes.
The lawsuit, which was filed in a Chicago district court earlier this week, is being championed by the Hamilton Lincoln Law InstituteManh, which describes itself as a public interest law firm “dedicated to battling the progressive left’s agenda”.
HLL is representing Christoper Manhart, who was just one of thousands of passengers who were stuck in traffic due to the protest action and ended up missing their flights as part of the coordinated action that was weeks in the planning.
The protest took place on April 15, when activists protesting against Israel’s military action in Gaza ‘rushed’ the I-190 off-ramp, which leads into Chicago O’Hare. The protestors laid across the roadway and created what is known as a ‘Sleeping Dragon’ by linking their arms in PVC piping to prevent their easy removal by law enforcement.
It took nearly three hours for the police to finally remove the protestors, by which time thousands of passengers had reportedly missed their flights. During the protest, stranded airline passengers struggled with their luggage for more than a mile in a desperate attempt to make it to the airport in time.
“Vacation, interviews, weddings, and other important lifetime events were cast aside as the activists forced the public to participate in the demonstration by falsely imprisoning them,” the 38-page complaint against the protestors alleges.
“Plaintiff Christopher Manhart and other innocent class members heading into O’Hare that morning had nothing to do with an international dispute thousands of miles away, many likely have no opinion at all on the issue,” the complaint continued.
“But these innocent Americans were dragged into the conflict because the Defendants and foreign terrorist organization Hamas have decided a propaganda offensive in America is their best weapon against Israel.”
On the same day that protestors blocked the entrance roadway to O’Hare, similar action took place Seattle Tacoma International Airport, and at the Golden Gate Bridge, and Brooklyn Bridge, although this lawsuit only targets the O’Hare protestors.
Manhart was one of many passengers who missed their flight as a result of the protest, and although he managed to reach his destination later the same day, the lawsuit alleges that he missed an important dinner and networking function.
The complaint states: “Manhart seeks to hold Defendants accountable for their illegal and tortious conspiracy to falsely imprison unsuspecting motorists and for creating a public nuisance that unreasonably interfered with the Plaintiff and class members’ right to travel freely”.
The lawsuit alleges a wide range of illegal activities, including false imprisonment, public nuisance, obstructing a highway, and conspiracy.
The defendants named in the case include the Jewish Voice for Peace, the Tides Center and its Community Justice Exchange, and the American Muslims for Palestine. The suit also names four individuals who were allegedly directly involved in orchestrating the protest.
“We support the right to protest, but a premeditated attack that injures innocents is not protected by the First Amendment,” commented HLL attorney Theodore H. Frank after the lawsuit was filed.
“By holding the disrupters and their organizational sponsors civilly accountable, we hope to curtail foreign-sponsored and antisemitic actions that harm innocent Americans and puts them at risk.”
Something like this needs to happen in the UK against Just Stop Oil and all the other lunatic climate zealots
We need more of this but the crazy leftist protestor types don’t care. Heck, most of them don’t even know what they are protesting or how evil the people the support are in the case of Hamas.