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

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."

The court case, called Tucson et al. v. City of Seattle et al., involves the protesters the Emerald spoke with in early 2021: Derek Tucson, Robin Snyder, Monsieree de Castro, and Erik Moya-Delgado. With their attorneys Braden Pence, Nathaniel Flack, and Neil Fox, they filed suit against the City of Seattle and nine SPD officers.

In the suit, the recent order reads, the protesters "claim that they were wrongly arrested and booked in jail for exercising their right to speak their mind critically of the police through messages written in charcoal and chalk on a temporary concrete barrier erected on the sidewalk outside of the Seattle Police Department's East Precinct."

"Defendants maintain that they merely enforced Seattle's property destruction ordinance in a reasonable and content-neutral manner, and that they in no way retaliated against Plaintiffs on account of their political views. But Plaintiffs point out that the City rarely, if ever, enforces the property destruction ordinance against chalking or charcoaling in public spaces," the order's summary continues.

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.

The court also granted summary judgment in favor of the protesters in a number of claims, but denied others, including their motion for summary judgment on the allegation of First Amendment rights violations. Pechman determined that a jury must decide whether officers violated the protesters' First Amendment rights. The court denied all officers involved qualified immunity, which would have meant that the officers would have been protected from the lawsuit.

Readers can find the recent court order here.

Featured Image used with permission from a source who prefers to remain anonymous.