This is an interesting special case of a general law most if not all states have. If you jump out in front of a car, the car is not considered liable. There are people who will jump in front of slow-moving cars to pretend they are really hurt and sue for damages.
The protesters are somewhat like that. Although in most states there are laws that say cars must yield for pedestrians on crosswalks. So if the protest in on crosswalks, you need to have a way to distinguish between pedestrians moving across the crosswalks and protesters.
If I were running a protest, I would have my group essentially walk around the 4 crosswalks in an intersection continuously. Note that they would be committing a crime (crossing against the signal, probably “failure to obey signal”), but if a pedestrian breaks that law, drivers are still supposed to stop for them. If you hit one, you have to show that he stepped in front of you while you were moving and you had no reasonable way to see him and avoid him.
So in that case, you’d need a new law that said if the people were part of a protest, even if they were staying in crosswalks you could not be sued for hitting them.
If i got stopped by protesters who circled my car, I would crack my window and ask if they were going to let me go, or if they were holding me. If they said they were holding me, I’d run them over and claim I had been kidnapped. If they said I could leave my car, I’d ask if I could take my car with me, or if I had to leave my car with them. If they said I had to leave my car, I’d run them over, and claim they were carjackers.
LOL, this is why conservatives don’t make good protestors. Other than the fact that we have jobs. Liberal thugs don’t worry about pesky things called laws.