Jury awards $700,000 to Seattle protesters arrested for writing anti-police slogans in chalk on barricade

Four protesters who were arrested for writing anti-police graffiti in chalk on a temporary barricade near a Seattle police station were awarded nearly $700,000 after a federal court jury ruled that their civil rights were violated.

The arrests of the four on January 1, 2021, followed the intense Black Lives Matter protests that rocked Seattle and several other cities around the world the previous summer following the death of George Floyd, a black man. He was killed when a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for about 9 1/2 minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and pleading that he couldn’t breathe.

“The tensions of that summer and the feelings that were alive in the city at that time are obviously a big part of this case,” said Nathaniel Flack, one of the lawyers for the four protesters. “And what the evidence showed was that it was animosity toward Black Lives Matter protesters that motivated the arrests and incarceration of the plaintiffs.”

Derek Tucson, Robin Snyder, Monsiere De Castro and Erik Moya-Delgado were each awarded $20,000 in compensatory damages and $150,000 in punitive damages when the 10-person jury returned its verdict on Friday.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court against the city of Seattle and four police officers, Ryan Kennard, Dylan Nelson, Alexander Patton and Michele Letizia. The jury found that the city and officers arrested and jailed the four in retaliation, and the officers acted with malice, reckless disregard or oppression, denying the plaintiffs their First Amendment rights.

Email messages left Tuesday to the Seattle city attorney’s office, Seattle police and the police association seeking comment were not immediately returned.

On New Year’s Day 2021, the four protesters used chalk and charcoal to write messages such as “Peaceful Protest” and “Free Us All” on a temporary barricade near the police department’s East Precinct. Body camera footage presented at trial showed that at least three police cruisers arrived at the scene to arrest the four for violating the city’s anti-graffiti laws.

The four spent a night in prison but were never prosecuted.

Flack said testimony presented at trial showed that police generally do not enforce the law prohibiting the use of chalk on sidewalks. In fact, the lawyers showed videos of police officers writing “I (heart) POLICE” in chalk on the sidewalk at another event in Seattle.

Flack said it was also unusual for the four to be arrested because it occurred during a COVID-19 outbreak and only the most serious offenders would be incarcerated.

“These officers were doing what they call the ‘protester exception,’ which means if you are a protester, if you have a certain message or a certain type of speech that you are putting out, then they are going to book you into arrest,” Flack said.

“The jury not only found that individual officers were doing this, but that there was actually a broader practice that city leadership was aware of and was also responsible for,” he said.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said this should be a warning and a lesson to police officers and other government officials across the county who violate citizens’ First Amendment rights.

“This was a content and viewpoint-based law enforcement decision that resulted in our clients being arrested for what they had to say,” Flack said. “The important thing here is that the police cannot arrest people for the content of their speech.”

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Thiessen reported from Anchorage, Alaska.