The 24-year-old activist — and Seattle school teacher — at the center of the controversy surrounding last weekend’s pepper spray-doused Pride protest met with media Thursday afternoon at the site where the conflict with police went down and six were arrested near E Madison and 13th Ave. Hudson Williams-Eynon, released from jail Monday when a King County Court judge found no probable cause to continue holding him as possible assault charges are weighed, said he plans to be back on the street Friday night at a rally slated to begin at Seattle Central at 8p to protest the police actions on Pride weekend.
It is unknown how many people will attend the Friday night rally billed as a remembrance of the Stonewall riots and a solidarity event for the “queer dance party” that sparked the conflict with police Saturday night. The Facebook event for the rally currently lists more than 100 participants. Dozens of people marched Wednesday in the weekly action protesting student debt. There were no arrests. Earlier on Friday evening, a “SUPPORT OUR YOUTH! Seattle Vigil for Lesbian teens shot in Texas!” event is planned for Cal Anderson Park.
“This event was billed as a street dance party, particularly for queer youth. And I came out to support that,” Williams-Eynon said of the Pride weekend conflict. “Because I think it’s a shame that those people don’t get to celebrate their identity and their freedom with the rest of the queer community.”
Williams-Eynon said he is part of the queer community but currently dating a woman.
Williams-Eynon’s statement (Image: CHS)
Williams-Eynon said, on the advice of legal counsel, he could not address whether he kicked a police officer as alleged by the East Precinct. He said he has not decided whether he will pursue a lawsuit against the city for the pepper spray and arrest and provided a brief written statement about the incident. SPD has confirmed that an internal investigation into the incident is underway.
Wiliams-Eynon, a Beacon Hill resident according to arrest documents, was also one of the Chase 5 group eventually found not-guilty for entering a Broadway bank and chaining themselves together last fall.
“Chase 5 was a planned act of civil disobedience,” he said. “I had no plans to be attacked by police on Saturday.”
The East Precinct’s commander Capt. Ron Wilson said his officers will again be in place Friday night should the rally participants pose a threat to public safety.
“It’s a tremendous strain on budget and resources to have to address this,” Wilson told CHS earlier this week. “We’re going to be there to make sure it remains peaceful.”
A reporter for CHS and our sister site Central District News attempted to attend Thursday night’s appearance by Wilson at the monthly East Precinct Advisory Council but were turned away at the door by security who said the meeting room was full. UPDATE: The reporter was finally let in mid-way through the session. Report here.
Williams-Eynon said the department’s actions last weekend prove SPD cannot be trusted. ”The police are known to make up charges of assault when they attack people,” he said. “This is a common practice. It’s well documented. The police are not trustworthy.”
UPDATE: See our coverage of the protest.
The Seattle Police Department has broken its trust with the community by using excessive force, charged federal investigators who called for more training and better supervision.
The conclusions were reached after more than eight months of investigation into the department’s use of force, Assistant Atty. Gen. Thomas E. Perez of the U.S. Justice Department’s civil rights division told reporters Friday at a Seattle news conference.
“We found that the systems of accountability are broken. Accountability is at the heart of constitutional policing,” Perez said, adding that the Justice Department would work with local officials to improve training and supervision. “The trust between the Seattle Police Department and the people of Seattle is broken and must be repaired.”
“When SPD officers use force, they do so in an unconstitutional manner nearly
20% of the time. This finding (as well as the factual findings identified below) is not based on citizen reports or complaints. Rather, *it is based on a review of a randomized, stratified, and statistically valid sample of SPD’s own internal use of force reports completed by officers and supervisors.*”
link to DOJ report:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2011/12/16/2017030065
The Facebook event link is busted. Where on Broadway does this start, exactly?
It’s scheduled to start at Seattle Central at 8pm. https://www.facebook.com/events/432393753449703/434431826579
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF1lU-CrQfc
Google won’t let us find out what you meant without tracking our viewing:
“This YouTube video may contain inappropriate content for some users.
“Please sign in to confirm your age”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV-Faop5ZaE
All power to all people – Globalize human rights
“It’s a tremendous strain on budget and resources to have to address this,” Wilson told CHS earlier this week.
Please stop trying to scapegoat the kids who did nothing wrong. Your officers were out of control last weekend and the taxes I pay to City of Seattle are probably going to have to pay off another lawsuit. Or six. I hope this is just your “PR voice” and not how you actually think, but either way you’re doing a great disservice to the people of Seattle. Shame on you.
GLITUR just Tweeted: #SPD is bemoaning the cost of policing tonight’s dance party. That’s cool. They’re not invited anyway.
Including an unmarked SWAT SUV, several unmarked vans, what looks like a mobile command post, about 10 bicycles, and a pickup truck from the Mounted (equine?) Unit.
…..scary
80′% of the time they use it correctly.
“The police are known to make up charges of assault when they attack people…”
LOL – What a load of poop. It would be more accurate to say that the “protesters” are known to make up charges of assault when they bait officers into enforcing the law!
It’s also hilarious that these people are portrayed as an innocent “activist” and a “school-teacher”. As if they couldn’t also be the same jerks taunting the cops and refusing to follow basic protest rules.
All for no reason other than posting video of themselves on the Internet. Or if they’re lucky — an opportunity to file a trumped-up lawsuit against the City!
I don’t know which part had me rolling my eyes more. That he’s a white man, privileged in this society, or that he made two days in King County lockup sound like a year in a Tijuana jail.
80% of the time is not enough. It should be 100% of the time. No excuses for lazy, unconstitutional police work.
Oh, it’s worse than that.
From the DOJ report…
“Of use of force encounters, moreover, particularly those in which impact weapons are used by police, “57% of the time it is either unnecessary or excessive.”
The DOJ is serious about the SPD being way out of control. Because they have not cracked your skull isn’t a reason to not believe them.
Yeah, I know! These people are anarchists who need to get the fuck out of our hood and stop screwing it up for the rest of us who really DO want to live here peacefully.
Still, it frightens me the number of morons who drank the Kool-aid and these idiots really ARE wronged activists.
How is it that this guy keeps running into the police? Are the police targeting him?
Since you said 100% you have shown yourself to be unreasonable and nothing the police can or would do will make you change your view.
Yes. The jackbooted Police from the oppressive Police State are targeting him, because he’s a dumb ass. We have laws against dumb asses, which is why they keep getting pepper sprayed by law enforcement officers.
Why does Wiliams-Eynon try to make this about queer youth when he is clearly, from his arrest history, a part of Occupy (this time around, other movements when convenient)t? He has been arrested in the past and will be arrested again – because he wants to be arrested. It’s a lawsuit factory used by professional agitators to get paid. BAH @ him trying to make this about queer youth. Shame, also.
I guess some people would find it acceptable if car brakes only worked 80% of the time, or if 20% of airplane flights failed to land safely…
Hey, cop. Hey.
Did you actually, um … *watch* the videos in question? Which, by the way, the people featured in them played no part in making?
Or do you just come on here to espouse twisted logic without even making that much of an effort to know what you’re talking about?
Here, for starters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYnXMe8M7mg
Maybe if you pointed to *anywhere* in his self-aware and brief statement he made it sound like he was in a Tijuana, we could help you.
Because *clearly* he wanted that volley of pepper-spray to the face, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYnXMe8M7mg
The first two times were planned protest arrests, which he’s already said. The third was, as he’s already said, outside of his control. Could have been coincidence, could have been planned on the part of the police. One of the women arrested with him — “a known member of the anarchist community” — was assuredly a police target.
*Tijuana jail
That’s nice of you to offer some form of assistance mbop, but my post was not a request for help. It was a statement.
However, your post does offer a glimpse into why students are so frustrated with education. I too would be very upset to pay so much money and have very low critical thinking as well as no remedial reading skills.
Car brakes don’t work 100% of the time across all cars so what is your point?
Mbop,
If they were planned protest arrests that you claim then he was fully aware of what could happen. So you are basically saying he planned to be peppered sprayed. It does make his YouTube videos more effective.
Lawsuit factory. Lawsuit mill? Lawsuit scam? I think I like the last best as it most accurately describes this behavior. On a lighter note, Ian Awesome photo-bombing the picture above made my day. There should be a whole site dedicated to his photobombing. It’s like finding Burt in the posters in Gaza, except more obvious.
Sounds like this guy is one of the immature kids, not an adult that should be responsible for teaching them.
Care elaborate on why he is “immature”?