Police arrest 13 during Seattle protests

SEATTLE – Crowds of angry and heartbroken demonstrators gathered in rainy downtown Seattle and on Capitol Hill Wednesday evening after a grand jury decided earlier in the day not to charge Kentucky police officers for shooting and killing Breonna Taylor.

The events began with two 7 p.m. rallies – one that began at Westlake Park downtown and ended with a vigil for Taylor outside the U.S. Courthouse, and another at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill that led to smashed windows, 13 arrests and a referral to the Office of Police Accountability over one officer’s actions.

As the night progressed and crowds reconvened outside the police department’s East Precinct, police declared an unlawful assembly, using pepper spray and other less-lethal weapons to clear protesters.

“Before we head out and march today … we are here in solidarity for Louisville, Kentucky,” one organizer said to the Westlake crowd around 7:30 p.m., according to several livestreams. “That is the only reason we are here today.”

In support of Kentucky protesters, Westlake organizers read aloud six demands from Louisville’s Black Lives Matter chapter, which are directed at their city officials. They include: fire and revoke the pensions of officers who killed Taylor; divest from Louisville Metro Police Department and invest in community building; impeach Louisville Mayor Greg Fisher, who protesters are urging to resign; end use of force by local police; develop a civilian police accountability council independent of the mayor’s office; and establish policies to ensure transparent investigation processes.

At Cal Anderson Park, protester Trayvonna Thompson-Wiley said the grand jury’s decision offered “no justice at all.” The demonstration was a message that people across the country are in solidarity, she said.

“The new generation, millennials, Gen Z are not going to give in to lip service,” she said. “They want change.”

Thompson-Wiley said her family, once able to live in the Central District, has been displaced by gentrification. Three generations ago, they moved to Seattle “to flee white supremacy and Jim Crow, but they encountered a new type of white supremacy,” she said.“We need a total abolition of the system,” she said.

Around 8:30 p.m., some people who had gathered at Cal Anderson started smashing parking meters and the windows of a Starbucks on First Hill. A second Starbucks was hit shortly after, and Seattle police issued a dispersal order before 9 p.m.

By 9:15 p.m., police had arrested several people on First Hill.

Meanwhile, in downtown Seattle, the group that started at Westlake made its way to the U.S. Courthouse on Fifth Avenue and placed candles and flowers as part of a vigil for Taylor.

“You need to be educating your families, your friends, your neighbors and yourself,” one protester at the vigil shouted at the crowd. “Because if you grew up here, or in any white country, you do not have proper education. … Do not wait until there’s another dead Black body.”

Around 10:30 p.m., people reassembled outside the Police Department’s East Precinct on Capitol Hill, chanting and playing music before someone threw a firework at the precinct.

“Stop throwing pyrotechnics at the precinct,” an officer said over a loudspeaker.

Shortly after, a group of officers – some on bikes – came into the area, pepper spraying the crowd and sending people running, before the scene settled into a brief standoff at 11th Avenue and Pine Street.

According to a series of tweets from the Police Department about 11 p.m., the officers deployed pepper spray after protesters “cut security cameras” at the precinct and started throwing glass bottles.

Officers briefly retreated from the intersection, but returned to issue another dispersal order around 11:40 p.m. when a fire broke out outside Sunset Electric Apartments on Pine Street. Officers used blast balls and pepper spray. They continued making arrests past midnight while pushing the crowds away from the precinct and into Capitol Hill side streets.

Police declared an unlawful assembly around 12:30 a.m. and again ordered people to leave the area, adding on Twitter that “multiple fires have been set, explosives have been thrown at officers, and property damage in the surrounding area.” The majority of remaining protesters ended up circling back to Cal Anderson around 1 a.m., and dispersed shortly after, according to multiple livestreams.

Police said they arrested 13 people on investigation of property destruction, resisting arrest, failure to disperse and assault on an officer. The department also posted photos of someone in the crowd appearing to hit an officer in the head with a baseball bat.