WA SPD Booked Protesters in 2021 Due to 'City Policy' To Discriminate Against Anti-Police Protesters, Judge Rules

https://southseattleemerald.com/2024/05/22/spd-booked-protesters-in-2021-due-to-city-policy-to-discriminate-against-anti-police-protesters-judge-rules/

SPD Booked Protesters in 2021 Due to ‘City Policy’ To Discriminate Against Anti-Police Protesters, Judge Rules

MAY 22, 2024 EDITOR
by Carolyn Bick

In early 2021, a group of protesters was arrested for writing in chalk on walls and a concrete barrier outside the Seattle Police Department (SPD) East Precinct. The protesters were connected with the protest movements that swept the country starting in late May 2020, following the murder of George Floyd. They were subsequently booked into the King County Jail in a process that appeared to fly in the face of established COVID-19 booking protocols — apparently at the behest of high-ranking officials within the City of Seattle and law enforcement.

From this incident, a wrongful-arrest case was born. On May 10, Western District of Washington Judge Marsha Pechman ruled in summary judgment that the specific decision to book protesters in the first place was due to a “City policy or practice to discriminate against anti-police protestors.”

Additionally, Pechman wrote, the protesters “were treated differently from similar-situated people engaged in chalking and charcoaling in traditional public fora such that an officer would typically have exercised their discretion not to arrest them.”

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This case and the recently filed order also appear to once again thrust related topics to the fore: Retaliatory arrests for writing anti-police graffiti and efforts by the pro-police Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison to get the City of Seattle to enforce its anti-graffiti ordinance. Recent reporting highlights that the broad language of the ordinance allows police latitude to arrest in a subjective manner and that the City of Seattle does not appear to consistently apply the law.

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