Summer Taylor, right, dancing early Saturday morning on I-5 (Image: @nowah_j with permission to CHS)
Dawit Kelete, the driver in the July 2020 I-5 crash that killed a Capitol Hill Black Lives Matter protester and severely injured another demonstrator, was sentenced to six and a half years in jail Friday.
The court handed down the “sentence above the standard range” due to the severity of injuries suffered by Diaz Love, the demonstrator struck by Kelete’s speeding vehicle who suffered a traumatic brain injury and multiple injuries in the collision.
Summer Taylor died in the crash that was captured on video and further inflamed the volatile situation in the city in the wake of the forceful clearance of the CHOP protest camp on Capitol Hill in July 2020.
The crash came as protesters demonstrated and danced with the nightly Black Femme March for Black Lives Matter. As it had for weeks, the group entered the freeway and brought traffic to a standstill. Just after 1:30 AM on July 4th, Kelete, who reportedly avoided Washington State Patrol attempts to block off the roadway, sped his white Jaguar toward the crowd, careening into Taylor and the other activist, and trying to race away before being arrested after he was stopped by a car in place to protect the protestors. Taylor died at Harborview later that day.
Taylor, a 24-year-old Capitol Hill resident who worked at a neighborhood veterinarian clinic, was remembered for a love of working with animals and for expressing joy and passion for social justice.
Taylor’s parents spoke at Friday’s hearing and family members wrote letters to the court asking for a stronger sentence:
Taylor’s family expressed support for the demonstrators who were part of the protest that night in addressing the court Friday.
KOMO: “You are my heroes”
“You are my heroes,” Taylor’s mother said Friday, KOMO reports. “If anyone still feels an inkling of responsibility, none of this is your fault.”
CHS reported in July as Kelete’s defense attorney and the King County Prosecutor’s office arrived at a plea deal ending years of legal maneuverings in the case.
Kelete’s legal defense has said the then-27-year-old was unfairly portrayed and that the crash was a terrible accident. “The Washington State Patrol claims to have closed some portions of I-5 between SR-520 to I-90,” his lawyers wrote two years ago. “Kelete entered the interstate in his vehicle and an unfortunate collision occurred causing two of the protesters to be struck.”
Earlier this year, it was determined Kelete was competent to stand trial and that a defense of diminished capacity could not be used. Though he passed a sobriety and breathalyzer test after the crash, prosecution and court records show Kelete has suffered from opioid addiction. Meanwhile, his defense had also battled over alleged contamination of blood test work executed by the state crime lab.
The sentencing ends the proceedings in the criminal case but legal ramifications of the crash continue as Love is suing the city and state for negligence for failing to protect protesters. Kelete is also named in the lawsuit.
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Wasn’t he driving in the wrong direction on the freeway? Wasn’t he exceeding the speed limit? If one or both of these answers is yes then the sentence was ridiculous. 6 years well.
Welcome to clown world.
This guy got 21 months for killing a cyclist and hiding from prosecution. If you don’t like these brief sentences for murder and manslaughter consider how you have voted over the years.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.king5.com/amp/article/news/crime/man-pleaded-guilty-deadly-hit-run-seattle-seward-park-cyclist-sentenced/281-e3d6e151-5492-4edd-9207-e3304c43b79d
Don’t pretend electoral choices had anything to do with this sentence. It’s intellectually dishonest.
The judge – a former prosecutor who was appointed, not elected, to the bench – handed down a sentence that was above the standard range for the crime. Nothing lenient about it.
18 months is above standard range for killing somebody in a hit and run? Seriously?
He was sentenced to six and one half years, which is above the recommended sentencing range.
Who appointed the judge?
…and who appoints judges?
elected officials.
You all fail civics.. King Country Superior Court Judges are elected… Do you all not vote? Have you never looked at a voters pamphlet and noticed that you vote for judges? 🤦
The Governor appoints open seats for the Superior Court. Many of those Judges then end up running for re-election; if no one opposes their election, i.e. runs against them, they are auto-elected.
The number of Superior Court Judges in King County who have been elected?
Considerably less then half.
Another fail for you all and civics.. it’s not the systems fault if YOU don’t take the time to educate yourself about judges and actually vote for them. It’s yours…
I’m fine with lenient sentences for anything related to petty property but not when it comes to fatally injuring someone. This isn’t hard. The far right challengers want drug users treated the same as murderers, that’s the issue.
This isn’t leniency. The defendant had no prior offenses to count against him at sentencing, and he pleaded guilty without going to trial, yet he still got hit with a sentence that was substantially above guidelines.
Not exactly. He was driving the right direction and I haven’t seen any reports that he was exceeding the speed limit.
BUT. He did earlier drive the wrong way up the Stewart street off-ramp to get onto the freeway in the first place, and those legal freeway speeds were way, way too fast for an obstructed roadway.
The larger context is he was racing home because he was experiencing opioid withdrawal. Commenters looking for a broader social evil to hang this tragedy on should pay more attention to this detail.
The doordash worker on the clock at 12:30 am attempting to use I-5, his white jaguar being surrounded by protesters, he panics and swerves and floors it, fishtails, and tragically strikes Taylor and Love, who are dancing on a US Interstate as some form of protest. A dumb tragedy all around. Note yet again ,an actual black life (Kelete) was permanently ruined by white people’s performance protesting, allegedly in favor of “Black lives mattering.” That became the theme of the “summer of love,” as 3 other black teens were shot, two by white people, one of whom died. Love misidentified those teens as “Proud boys trying to kill us,” then they were murdered by CHOP checkpoint armed anarchists, possibly members of the John Brown Gun Club, none of whom have ever stood trial or even been identified to this day. RIP Antonio Mays, Jr., an actual Black Life ended by white protesters in the name of “Black Lives Mattering.”
The entire protest was an exercise in stupid, off topic, performance art protesting, it did nothing of consequence except raise the murder and injury rate on Capitol Hill for weeks, and contributed to Defund which we’re still dealing with the negative consequences of.
RIP Summer Taylor. Diaz Love the last I saw was in Thailand fundraising for a sex change operation, according to her facebook page.
Probably the best summary of the Summer of Love.
You cant even make it out of the first sentence without making shit up, this is your whome schtick on here
lol at your constant lies in your posts. “Dumb all around” as if Kelete is on par with Summer Taylor protesting (she was not DANCING at all). You’re trying to conflate and make them both equal in their actions and it’s disgusting.
There’s literally photos of her dancing attached to this article.
The doordash worker on the clock at 12:30 am attempting to use I-5, his white jaguar…..
DoorDash workers drive white Jaguars? I’m missing something.
In this case, it was a doordasher driving a white jaguar. Check references above. Individual’s life ruined during a moment of confusion and panic. I hope they will be able to find stable housing and employment after they are released. If anyone is a candidate for restorative justice, it’s this person.
Excellent comment, a great example that there are two sides to every story. Thank you!
Yep, that pretty much sums it up.
Any way you look at it The CHOP was an utter failure. It led to exactly ZERO substantive policy changes in regards to policing in our city and ended with two Black teenagers shot (one killed) by the very same people who claimed to be there to protect their lives.
But hey, white people got to make some cool signs, yell at cops and virtue signal with their also white friends!
CHOP….the zine trading and book collecting site with a bunch of people sitting on lawns. OH THE HORROR! The ones who were violent were also violent in non-CHOP areas.
“Though he passed a sobriety and breathalyzer test after the crash, prosecution and court records show Kelete has suffered from opioid addiction.”
JSeattle, I’m confused by the use of the word ‘though’ in this sentence. It makes it sound like you think Kelete’s opioid addiction is a mitigating factor to his intoxicated driving. Was that your intention?
Precisely speaking, he wasn’t intoxicated. To be sure, neither was he in his right mind: he was in the throes of opioid withdrawal, but again, not, per se, intoxicated in any literal or legal sense.
Kelete’s defense tried to use his opioid dependency to mitigate his legal responsibility.
He’ll be out in 2-3.
I agree, it’s too little. But also interesting hearing all the soft-on-crime lefties all of a sudden demanding a higher sentence when their peeps are the victims.
That’s not what is happening at all but go ahead with your false equivalency. I’m sure this is the exact same in your mind as a fent user or guy who stole deodorant at Walgreen’s………….
LENIENT SENTENCE! Wtf!! Should be 30-40+ years!
YES! We must destroy the lives of people that represent the things we hate. Make him rot in jail where he can think about his confused, hateless actions. Without this sacrifice, the gods we worship will never bring Utopian salvation upon our hills. LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! Grab a pitchfork, who’s with me?!
Jail for the ones who use a 2000lb hunk of metal to kill someone in a rage is fine. Jail is for violent criminals in any society.