Verdict reached in trial over Seattle Black Lives Matter protester’s 2020 death

The state of Washington was not negligent in the 2020 death of a Black Lives Matter protester, a King County jury ruled Thursday. The same jury determined that the driver who struck Summer Taylor must pay their family $6 million in damages.

Summer Taylor, 24, was struck and killed by a car on Interstate 5 in Seattle in July 2020. Their family sued the state later that year, arguing that the state failed to take precautions that would have protected Taylor and other protesters on the freeway. The man driving the car and the city of Seattle were also named as defendants in the wrongful death lawsuit.

Dawit Kelete drove the wrong way onto an I-5 ramp in the early hours of July 4, 2020, and struck a group of demonstrators, killing Taylor and severely injuring another protester, Diaz Love. Kelete pleaded guilty to reckless driving, vehicular manslaughter and vehicular assault with aggravating substantial injuries in July 2023 and was sentenced last September to 6½ years in prison.

The jury was not asked to determine whether Kelete bears responsibility; that was already decided by his criminal case. Attorneys for Taylor’s estate said the state is also to blame, while an attorney for the state argued that Taylor’s presence on the freeway that night was illegal. The jury determined Taylor was not negligent.

The jury’s noneconomic damages ruling included $1,750,000 each for Summer Taylor’s parents and $2,500,000 for their brother.

Karen Koehler, an attorney representing Taylor’s family, argued during the trial that Taylor would not have been killed had the state’s transportation department and the Washington State Patrol appropriately closed the Stewart Street exit ramp.

“No patrol car, no spike strips, no flashing lights, no barricade, nothing. … That’s negligence,” she said during closing arguments.

Steve Puz, senior counsel for the Washington Attorney General’s Office, argued that both Kelete and Taylor were at fault: Kelete for illegally driving the wrong way onto an exit ramp and Taylor for being a pedestrian on a vehicle-only roadway.

“Had either of them chosen to follow the law that the rest of us are bound by, this doesn’t happen – this accident never happens,” he said during opening arguments.

Taylor, a veterinary assistant born and raised in Seattle, was remembered by family after their death as a lover of animals and someone dedicated to racial and LGBTQ+ justice. They had hoped to one day attend veterinary school at Washington State University.