Video Offers New Angle on Officer's MLK Day Injury and the Pepper-Spraying Afterward

YouTube

A screengrab from the video shows an MLK day protester (against the white car) being chased after by a Seattle police officer (to his left).

After Martin Luther King Jr. day, I posted this video of police pepper-spraying protesters at the intersection of Westlake Avenue and Republican Street as they tried to move people away from an officer who'd fallen to the ground. But the video didn't show what caused the officer to fall in the first place. A new video posted last night to YouTube, however, shot from the opposite end of the block, appears to show the officer running after someone in the crowd, grappling with him momentarily, and falling down as the man runs off. Watch below.

Two people—Mohawk Kuzma and Michael O'Dell—were later arrested and jailed on charges of causing the officer's injury, which the SPD said was a sprained ankle or knee. But the video doesn't appear to substantiate the contention that Kuzma caused the officer's injury, which is perhaps why King County prosecutors have not yet filed charges against him.

Before the scrum on Westlake, over on Highway 99, a group of eight protesters undertook an act of nonviolent civil disobedience to protest police killings of unarmed African Americans, sitting down in the road and blocking it with their arms linked together in lockboxes. Police reports viewed by The Stranger refer to this style of arm-locking as the "sleeping dragon" tactic.

According to a police report filed that day (PDF) by Officer Corey George, officers on the bike patrol received an order to block a separate group of 150 to 200 downtown marchers from joining up with the "sleeping dragon" protesters on Highway 99. "The decision was made to set a bicycle fence line at Westlake/Republican," he wrote.

In multiple police statements, the officers staffing the bicycle fence line complain that they were "understaffed" or had "insufficient resources," allowing protesters who wanted to keep going to break through the bike line.

Seattle police have not responded to a message left today seeking comment on the clip.

O'Dell, one of the two people arrested on charges of assaulting police, works as a mental health therapist and told me he was only there to film what was happening and didn't assault anyone. In fact, he filmed his own arrest on his cell phone, which you can watch right here.

Officer Michael Eastman, in a statement of probable cause against O'Dell, writes that "in the instance of Officer Hylton he did fall to the ground resulting in temporary but significant ankle injury." He accuses O'Dell of using his weight to help others break through the bike lane.

When other officers realized Hylton was injured, Eastman said, "it was unknown at that moment what his injury was... a 'help the Officer' call was put out. A 'help the Officer' call is the highest priority radio call and it still took a minute or two for additional Officers to arrive due to the heavy traffic congestion that the protest group had caused."

The man who shot the first video I posted to Slog, who is using an online pseudonym in order to not reveal his identity, said he didn't see what caused Hylton to fall down. But, he said, "A man on a yellow bicycle rode off the sidewalk and onto the road near the injured officer, and seemed to be knocked off his bicycle by another officer. That led to some shoving, then I started recording."

Toward the end of the new video, which doesn't do as good a job of showing the ample amount of pepper spray officers used, Seattle Pacific University student Isaac Robinson—he was later arrested for "obstruction"—is seen washing out the eyes of 55-year-old Tracey Chapman. I met her outside the King County Courthouse after prosecutors declined to charge Kuzma and O'Dell on January 22.

Ansel Herz

Tracey Chapman

"I'm don't agree with what they did," Chapman said of the police, "but I'm not going to judge them. When I come out in the future, I'll come with a first aid kit, so that if I see anyone else pepper-sprayed, I can offer aid to them. They did not follow their own protocol ." She said she'd been filming what was going on with an iPad.

Garfield High School teacher Jesse Hagopian is perhaps the highest-profile individual among those who were pepper-sprayed in the area of Westlake and Republican on MLK Day. He's filed a $500,000 claim with the city.

UPDATE: In an interview by phone, Seattle Police Officers Guild president Ron Smith said that it does not appear that Officer Hylton "was run over by any means. It appears as though he's trying to do something and he lost control."

"Based on what I know now from the newly released video," he said, "I retract the criticsm of the arraignment judge [who released O'Dell]."

"What is also clear," Smith added, "is that the department did not properly staff enough officers that day to ensure that the demonstrations could go on and officers could be safe at the same time."

It's also worth noting that Sergeant Joe Lam, who oversaw the bike squad on MLK Day, is the same officer who approved of the arrest of 70-year-old William Wingate last summer.

Correction: A prior version of this post erroneously stated that Bennett Taylor had, according to police, broken through the bike line. One police officer, according to his police report, "observed [Taylor] instruct the protestors to push pass the mobile fence line." But Sue Taylor, his mother, said in an e-mail message she was "shoved" by police and that her son was arrested merely for verbally objecting.