Tag Archives: chop

Seattle reaches $10M settlement with 50 plaintiffs harmed by police response to 2020 Black Lives Matter and CHOP protests

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The city will pay $10 million to protesters harmed during the Seattle Police Department’s response to the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in the city and the CHOP Capitol Hill protest camps, settling a sprawling lawsuit and bringing to a close one of the last major legal battles from the period of unrest and heavy response from law enforcement.

“A historic legal battle of epic proportions brought by 50 George Floyd/BLM Peaceful Protesters against Seattle and its Police Department has ended,” the Stritmatter Kessler Koehler Moore announced Wednesday.

“This decision was the best financial decision for the city considering risk, cost, and insurance,” Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison said in a statement on the deal. “The case has been a significant drain on the time and resources of the city and would have continued to be so through an estimated three-month trial that was scheduled to begin in May.”

Davison said the city “admits no wrongdoing in the case, which was significant in scope, with plaintiffs alleging injuries sustained during the protests.”

Included in the plaintiffs is the estate of Summer Taylor, the Capitol Hill resident and protester who died in a July 2020 crash on I-5 as a driver attempted to speed through a demonstration on the freeway. In September, CHS reported on the plea deal that brought a 6 1/2 year sentence for the driver in that case.

That sentence and the newly announced settlement mark some of the last major legal maneuverings as the City of Seattle has been tied up in court for years in battles over civil rights and wrongful death lawsuits stemming from the protests in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd and the flawed Seattle Police response. Continue reading →

Cops and clearance crew move Black Lives Memorial Garden campers from Cal Anderson — UPDATE

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(Image: Matt Mitgang/CHS)

Seattle Police and members of the city encampment clearance workers were at Cal Anderson Park’s south end Wednesday morning to move tents and tell campers around the Black LIves Memorial Garden to move along. A notice provided a phone number for campers to call to find out more about shelter options.

Wednesday’s efforts appeared focused on the tents and campers and did not involve the arrival of any heavy equipment like the type that was delivered by Seattle Parks to the area in late October. Continue reading →

Seattle Parks backs down — for now — as heavy equipment moved in for BLM garden removal from Cal Anderson Park

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(Image: Matt Mitgang)

(Image: Matt Mitgang)

Seattle Parks crews backed off and Seattle Police stood by after a small but spirited crowd of supporters gathered Tuesday morning to stop the removal of the Black Lives Memorial Garden from Capitol Hill’s Cal Anderson Park.

The early morning standoff played out around the so-called “sun bowl” area of the park where heavy equipment had been rolled in for the removal of the garden that was established during the Black Lives Matter and CHOP protest in the summer of 2020. Continue reading →

Black Star Farmers holds community gathering to save garden in Cal Anderson — UPDATE

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UPDATE: With volunteers remaining at the site through the weekend, the “turf restoration” work, so far, has been on hold

 

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As they did in August for a stewarding event where they gathered medicinal herbs from Cal Anderson Park, the Black Star Farmers group is inviting a gathering at the park’s Black Lives Memorial Garden hoped to span all of Friday. It’s the same day the Seattle Parks Department said it was planning to begin its “turf restoration” process that will remove the garden first created during the 2020 Capitol Hill Occupied Protest that filled the area with camps and demonstrators.

“Gather in the garden tomorrow – FRIDAY OCTOBER 13 👻 Community members are planning a full day of activities in support of the garden,” the group’s invitation reads. “We will start the morning with Communi-Tea & Yoga from 7-10AM and have an all-ages Garden Party from 12PM-10PM where we will have potluck food, garden stewarding, music, speakers, art making and an art gallery! Please bring plates, utensils, & grillables to share if you can!!” Continue reading →

Call to save the Black Lives Memorial Garden after city announces Cal Anderson ‘turf renovation’ plan — UPDATE: two weeks notice

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The garden in October 2023 — from the CHS Facebook Group

The garden in June, 2020

A Seattle Parks project to restore grass to the amphitheater bowl on the south end of Cal Anderson Park will bring an end to a community garden shaped during Seattle’s Black Lives Matter protests. The Black Lives Memorial Garden has been one of the few enduring monuments to the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest of the summer of 2020.

A Seattle Parks official confirmed the department will begin the turf restoration project planned for this week but declined to provide more information citing the Indigenous Peoples’ Day holiday at Seattle City Hall.

A letter reportedly posted by the Black Star Farmers group that has grown around the garden is calling for the city to back off its plans, saying city officials reached out to “request that we relocate the garden to Rainier Community Center in South Seattle.” The letter calls on supporters to gather at the garden for organizing meetings and “occupy the space.”

“Of course, showing up to the garden in the upcoming week and continuing to care for and occupy the space is always an option to show directly that we reject their plans to remove the garden,” it reads. “Now is the time to show up and get organized.” Continue reading →

No charges over Durkan, Best deleted texts from 2020 protests

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No charges will be filed against former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and Police Chief Carmen Best over deleted text messages from the time of the 2020 protests, saying a King County Sheriff investigation did not find evidence of criminal intent to destroy public records.

King County Prosecutor Lisa Manion’s announcement ends the investigation launched in 2022 after a whistle-blower revealed thousands of texts exchanged between Durkan, Best, current Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggins and more officials during the 2020 Black Lives Matter and anti-police protests had been deleted from city-owned devices.

The deleted texts became the centerpiece of a lawsuit brought against the city by Capitol Hill property owners and developers with claims of “Spoliation of Evidence” and intentional subterfuge.

The city has claimed the deletions were caused by factory resets, 30-day auto deletions, and manual deletions.

But some of the explanations bordered on the comical including a Durkan oceanic mishap: Continue reading →

Judge deals a blow to restaurant’s CHOP lawsuit

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A federal judge has dealt a blow to the legal case of a 11th Ave restaurant suing the City of Seattle over what it says was neglect and rights violations as it allowed the Capitol Hill protest zone to grow around the business.

The judge’s decisions this week tossed one of the four complaints brought by Korean fast casual joint Oma Bap and threw another two up for possible appeal in the case. Continue reading →

14-year sentence in CHOP murder case

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Horace Lorenzo Anderson, Jr.

The man who shot and killed 19-year-old Horace Lorenzo Anderson, Jr. on the edge of CHOP in June 2020 was sentenced to just over 14 years in prison Friday.

Marcel Long, also a teen at the time of the murder, will have credit for time served and also will serve three years in community custody, according to the King County Prosecutor’s office.

CHS reported here in May on the deal reached for Long to plead guilty to a reduced charge of second degree murder for the 2020 killing.

“There is never a guarantee of what will happen at a trial, even in a case such as this one,” the office said Friday about the deal and the judge’s decision. “Thursday’s sentencing for Murder in the Second Degree – a Class A felony – ensures that Mr. Long will have clear accountability.” Continue reading →

‘Misleading account’ — Former Chief Best rebuked for statements to public during CHOP

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Former Chief Best at a press conference at CHOP in the summer of 2020 (Image: CHS)

Former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best will not have to answer for dishonest and inaccurate statements made during CHOP that an investigation says inflamed the volatile situation around the 2020 protest camp on Capitol Hill that left two teenagers murdered and a string of litigation that continues three years later.

In a memo on the Seattle Office of Police Accountability’s findings in its investigation of the chief’s role in the public safety breakdown around the protests, Mayor Bruce Harrell joined in criticism of Best for making untrue statements to the public but said her refusal to participate in the OPA investigation prevented “a full assessment of the propriety of her actions during an important moment in Seattle history.”

“It is in the interests of the public and the City of Seattle to fully understand the events and the decision-making process that surrounded the protests and public demonstrations that occurred during the summer of 2020,” the Harrell memo reads. “The Executive believes that public employees who have had the honor to serve the City in such leadership positions should assist in establishing a review and record with the hopes of saving lives, reducing property destruction and loss, and addressing the erosion of public trust.” 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 →