How a new Seattle ordinance was tested during Saturday’s protest

SEATTLE – A Christian rally advocating for “freedom from same-sex attraction” and a counterprotest at Seattle’s Cal Anderson Park marked what’s believed to be the first skirmish between police and demonstrators since the City Council passed new rules in February allowing officers to use weapons like tear gas, pepper spray and blast balls to manage crowds.

It appears pepper spray and sticks or long batons to push back protesters were the only “less lethal” tools used to manage the crowd and protect officers while making arrests, said Det. Eric Muñoz, a Seattle Police Department spokesperson. But it’ll be days before all use-of-force reports from the event are submitted, reviewed and potentially sent along to the Office of Police Accountability for additional investigation, he said.

Saturday’s clash led to 23 arrests, but the police response was a far cry from five years ago. During mass protests in late May and June 2020, in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by a Minneapolis officer, Seattle police came under fire for their indiscriminate use of tear gas, pepper spray, foam-tipped projectiles and other crowd-control weapons.

At the time, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order to bar police from “employing chemical irritants or projectiles of any kind” against peaceful demonstrators, without precluding officers from taking “necessary, reasonable, proportional and targeted action” to protect against imminent threats of harm or to prevent violent acts and property destruction.

A year later, in May 2021, former Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law a restriction on police use of tear gas, unless it was necessary to prevent the risk of harm posed by a riot, barricaded subject or hostage situation.

That same year, the department made critical updates to its crowd management policy, which were approved by federal Judge James Robart of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington as part of ongoing policy revisions under the 2012 settlement agreement with the Department of Justice. The settlement was the result of a DOJ investigation that concluded Seattle officers used excessive force in one of every five arrests, that they frequently escalated situations and that they used force while making arrests for minor crimes, particularly against people who were intoxicated or in crisis. The DOJ also found evidence of biased policing.

Past city councils greatly restricted the use of “less lethal” weapons, which are designed to incapacitate or deter people without killing them but can cause serious injury or even death if improperly deployed. Previous legislation, passed as a result of public outcry over police violence and lawsuits, had all but barred the use of the weapons.

After more than $200 million in expenditures that have funded a top-to-bottom overhaul of the department’s use-of-force policies, training regimens and data-gathering capabilities – including the advent of body cameras – the enactment of a crowd-control ordinance that passes constitutional muster was the final requirement of Robart and his court-appointed monitor.

The crowd management ordinance passed in February directs the Seattle Police Department to create a policy consistent with the expectation that people “have the right to assemble to celebrate, engage, worship, watch sporting events, exchange ideas, protest, or simply gather.” It recognizes the department plays a role in facilitating safe gatherings, prioritizes “de-escalation, engagement and dialogue to resolve conflicts … when safe and feasible,” and directs that any use of force be “objectively reasonable, necessary and proportional” to the threat presented while minimizing harm to people engaged in peaceful speech and assembly.

The ordinance sets out the limited circumstances of when and how tear gas and blast balls can be used to disperse crowds and who is authorized to give the green light.