80 Protesters Arrested After Bay Bridge Shut Down For Hours

SAN FRANCISCO — Eighty protesters were arrested Thursday after shutting down the westbound Bay Bridge while demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.

The incident began before 7:45 a.m., when a group called Bay Area Palestine Solidarity parked their vehicles on the bridge, hung banners and staged a “die-in,” laying on the ground under white sheets.

All lanes had reopened by noon, but not before traffic was snarled for hours as over 200 demonstrators demanded President Joe Biden, in San Francisco for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ conference, call for an immediate ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas.

Twenty-nine vehicles were towed, according to the San Francisco Emergency Operations Center, which said the arrestees were cited and released.

Among those affected by the bridge closure were organ transplant patients and a juror in an antitrust trial involving Google, according to reports.

Multiple organs on the way to be transplanted were delayed, as were UCSF staff and patients, KGO reported.

The jury trial for Epic vs. Google scheduled for Thursday was canceled after a juror was trapped on the bridge, according to The Verge.

California Highway Patrol division chief Ezery Beauchamp called the protest highly coordinated. He said the patrol supports free speech rights but not a traffic shutdown that could prevent emergency vehicles from crossing.

"This is the wrong way to do it," he said. "This is 100% wrong, it's unacceptable and it's illegal."

Protester Marie Choi said she was surprised that several of the trapped commuters were not angry at the protesters.

"Someone had a tamale truck and was giving them out on the bridge," she said. "Folks were walking up and walking back with tamales, we had a lot of folks thanking us for protesting as they walked by.

"At the end of the day, millions of people around the world are calling for a ceasefire now."

Bay City News Service and the Associated Press contributed to this story.