Philosophy Professor Faces 20 Years for Throwing ICE's Tear Gas Away From Protesters

A California philosophy professor is facing up to 20 years in federal prison for the crime of protecting protesters from tear gas that ICE agents fired at them.

Jonathan Caravello, 38, a lecturer at California State University Channel Islands, goes on trial today on felony charges of assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon. His alleged weapon? A tear gas canister that federal agents had just lobbed into a crowd of protesters.

The charges stem from a February ICE raid on a cannabis farm near Camarillo, where Caravello joined demonstrators trying to block the operation. When a tear gas canister landed near his feet, witness Angelmarie Taylor told HuffPost, Caravello threw it away from the crowd in a high arc over the federal agents. He later removed a second canister that had become stuck under someone using a wheelchair and tossed that one away too.

That's when ICE agents swarmed him.

"An agent snatched him and pinned him to the ground as several other agents piled on top of him," Taylor said. Agents then threw Caravello in a car and drove through the crowd of protesters trying to block their exit. When Taylor jumped in a truck to follow, agents threw tear gas through her window.

Caravello disappeared into federal custody. His friends, colleagues, and students organized an impromptu search committee, checking hospitals and jails across the region. They eventually tracked him to the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center, where he was being held without access to a lawyer. Each time his supporters made the 70-mile trip to the facility, officials turned them away and refused to provide information.

It took two days for Caravello's name to appear in the federal prisoner database. He was released after four days on a $15,000 bond, initially charged with a misdemeanor for assaulting a federal officer.

Then prosecutors escalated. They convened a grand jury and upgraded the charge to a felony -- assault on a federal officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon. The maximum penalty jumped from one year to 20 years in prison.

Caravello found out about the felony indictment the same way his friends did: from a post on X by U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli.

The government's own affidavit, filed by Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Virginia Pulido, undermines the severity of the charge. Pulido alleges "the canister came within approximately several feet above law enforcements' heads" but does not describe any officer being hit or injured. In other words, the federal government is prosecuting a man for throwing their own tear gas away from civilians and over the heads of the agents who fired it in the first place.

This is how ICE operates under this administration: fire chemical weapons into crowds, then criminally charge anyone who tries to protect others from those weapons. Caravello, an active member of his faculty and tenants unions, wasn't attacking federal agents. He was doing what any decent person would do when they see a tear gas canister land near vulnerable people -- he got it away from them.

The trial begins today. If convicted on the felony charge, Caravello could spend the next two decades in federal prison for an act of basic human decency. Meanwhile, the agents who fired tear gas into a crowd of protesters, tackled a philosophy professor, held him incommunicado, and drove through demonstrators face no accountability whatsoever.

That's not law enforcement. That's state violence with a badge.