Tag Archives: black lives matter

Driver in I-5 collision that killed Capitol Hill Black Lives Matter demonstrator pleads guilty

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The driver in the July 2020 I-5 crash that killed a Capitol Hill Black Lives Matter protester and severely injured another demonstrator has pleaded guilty.

CHS reported here on the impending trial for Dawit Kelete, now 30, after repeated delays. Kelete’s attorney’s reached a plea agreement with King County Prosecutor in which the defendant admitted guilt to one count of vehicular homicide, a count of vehicular assault, and a count of reckless driving. The sides also reached an agreement on a sentencing recommendation for six years in prison and another year and a half probation. The sentencing is scheduled for September.

Summer Taylor died in the crash and Diaz Love was sent to the hospital with serious injuries in the collision 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. Continue reading →

This Capitol Hill ice cream shop is ‘woke’ — so why is it suing the city over CHOP?

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A memorial to Anderson The memorial to Lorenzo Anderson who was gunned down in front of Molly Moon’s during CHOP

One of Seattle’s most progressive small businesses has sued the city over its actions around the CHOP occupied protest that grew from the 2020 Black Lives Matter and George Floyd murder unrest into a dangerous camp that shut down blocks of Capitol Hill’s Pike/Pine core and left two teens shot to death including 19-year-old Lorenzo Anderson who was gunned down in the street in front of the ice cream shop behind the suit.

The Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream LLC v. City of Seattle case was filed this week in federal court.

It is being brought forward by the law firm of Morgan, Lewis and Bockius, the same firm that won a $3.6 million settlement with the city earlier this year on behalf of a slate of Capitol Hill property owners and businesses that sued over “deliberate indifference” from former Mayor Jenny Durkan, the Seattle Police Department and then-Chief Carmen Best, Seattle Fire, and the rest of City Hall over the handling of the camp that took over the streets around Cal Anderson Park in June 2020.

It is not clear why Molly Moon’s was not part of the previous lawsuit. CHS has asked the law firm and owner Molly Moon Neitzel for more details on the new filing.

Filed on the three-year anniversary of the protest camp’s formation, the lawsuit seemingly puts Molly Moon’s in position of demanding the city should have shut down the CHOP protests.

But the complaint filed this week begins with a defense of the protests even as it blames the city for the disorder that followed. Continue reading →

CHOP on stage? 11th & Pine ‘documentary theatre performance’ sees first light with readings at Capitol Hill’s Erickson Theatre

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Have the wounds from the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and CHOP’s time on Capitol Hill healed?

This weekend, playwright and University of Washington professor Nikki Yeboah’s work examining the aftermath of the protests will take the stage with Sound Theatre Company’s reading of 11th & Pine at the neighborhood’s Erickson Theatre:

Several years after the 2020 protests against police violence that ushered in a racial awakening across the nation, a deposed protest leader sends out a call to fellow activists. Her goal? To reconstruct the occupation she led in her city. As they relive moments both utopian and excruciating, the activists find the task of explaining what happened is not so simple. Did they succeed? Did they fail? How will they be remembered? Meanwhile, old tensions resurface and the group contends with powerful opponents who want to tell the story in their own way. Based on interviews with Seattle’s Capitol Hill Occupied Protestors, 11TH & PINE explores the impact of organized protest, asking “can we make a difference, and if so, at what cost?”

Continue reading →

Seattle Black Lives Matter at School ‘week of action’ includes School Board protest over ethnic studies, cops on campuses

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Black History Month in Seattle will again begin with a Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action including a protest of the School Board calling for the system to defend its ethnic studies programs and continue work to rely on “counselors not cops” to foster student safety.

Organized by educator and activist Jesse Hagopian, the weeks of action have become an annual part of Black History Month in Seattle and beyond. The 2023 events include the planned protest and more: Continue reading →

‘Justice for Tyre Nichols’ protest marches from Capitol Hill

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A group of protesters gathered in Cal Anderson Park and marched to the Space Needle and back Friday night in a demonstration against police as video of the deadly beating of Tyre Nichols by officers in Memphis was released.

The protest was announced via social media and a television news helicopter circled above the Capitol Hill park to cover the small demonstration involving a few dozen participants. No significant property damage was reported on Capitol HIll during the march which ended with the group gathering for a short time outside the East Precinct where Black Lives Matter protests stretched out during and after CHOP, replaced by months of anti-police protests through 2020 and into 2021. Continue reading →

Trial delayed again for East Precinct cop’s brother in CHOP protest shooting

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The trial of Nikolas Fernandez has again been delayed.

The King County Prosecutor’s office said earlier this month it needed more time to prepare its case against Fernandez in the June 7, 2020 shooting that injured a protester in the middle of a Black Lives Matter demonstrations at 11th and Pine.

The trial is now slated for a late February start.

It has been a long path to justice in the shooting. The case was supposed to come to trial a year ago in February 2022 after delays caused by the by the assignment of a new prosecutor and the “large number of outstanding interviews” required to try the case. Continue reading →

Inquest: Seattle Police shooting of Charleena Lyles justified

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A poster hung during the CHOP protests on Capitol Hill

Two Seattle police officers were justified in fatally shooting Charleena Lyles, an inquest jury found Wednesday.

The decision ended a painful legal process examining the decisions by the two Seattle police officers who shot and killed the pregnant, Black mother inside her apartment in the summer of 2017. Lyles was carrying a knife and suffering a mental crisis when the shooting occured. Continue reading →

With only one org stepping forward, Seattle selects administrator for $30M participatory budgeting process born out of 2020 protests

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Seattle found only one candidate to run the city’s new $30 million participatory budgeting process. They got the job.

The Office of Civil Rights announced that a bid from the national Participatory Budgeting Project advocacy group has been selected to serve as the third-party administrator on the newly formed effort to shape a $30 million package hoped to address inequity by creating a system of more direct control of community spending in Seattle.

“Although we had hoped for more applicants, we were pleased to see a proposal from PBP, who were engaged in the application process and showed a deep understanding and experience with a community led PB process,” the announcement reads.

CHS reported here last summer on the Seattle City Council’s decision to pursue growing the city’s Participatory Budgeting resources under the Office of Civil Rights, breaking a logjam over what department might lead the effort forward.

The initiative was born along with the Black Brilliance Research Project out of 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle. The $30 million falls under a $100 million package earmarked to address equity in the city by then-Mayor Jenny Durkan during 2020’s unrest in the city. Continue reading →

‘Capitol Hill Community Center’ — Times reports on Seattle’s short-lived plan to transfer the East Precinct before CHOP formed

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June 13th, 2020 (Image: CHS)

In late June of 2020, the few local media including CHS on the ground at the CHOP occupied protest around Cal Anderson and the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct at 12th and Pine reported on a Friday night meeting in the middle of the demonstrations held at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church and attended by activists, city officials, and then Mayor Jenny Durkan.

Included in the talks as officials discussed addressing demands over equity and police brutality in the wake of the George Floyd murder were ideas around the future of the East Precinct building itself. Five days later, Seattle Police would raid and clear chop under order from Durkan.

New reporting by the Seattle Times shows that the city was already considering options for the East Precinct weeks earlier before the CHOP camps formed that included handing over the building to Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County, an advocacy group that formed during the unrest of 2020 and presented the city with a roster of demands hoped to help quiet the streets after a week of heavy protest in Seattle in early June 2020. Though BLMSKC was not directly involved in organizing the largest protests that week, many activists were also calling for creating a “Capitol Hill Community Center” in the building with mutual aid, health, and care resources. Continue reading →

‘Say Her Name’ — City of Seattle settles Charleena Lyles wrongful death lawsuit

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Her name has echoed through the streets of the city since the Black mother of four was shot to death by two Seattle Police officers in the summer of 2017.

Lawyers representing the family of Charleena Lyles have announced a $3.5 million settlement in their wrongful-death lawsuit against the City of Seattle.

“Those children need to know that their mother should not have died,” an attorney representing the family said during a press conference Tuesday. “She did nothing that should have led to her death. She should have received compassion. She should have received resources. She should have received assistance.”

The police killing of Lyles sparked deep debate over SPD’s use of deadly force against people of color and handling of people suffering mental crisis. Her name became a rallying cry for Black Lives Matter marches and during the CHOP occupied protest on Capitol Hill as thousands called for justice in the case. Continue reading →