Police watchdog eyeing pepper spray use against protesters

SEATTLE (AP) — Seattle's police watchdog agency said Tuesday it is investigating the use of pepper spray to break up a fourth consecutive day of large protests over the George Floyd killing.

The protest Monday was largely peaceful but turned chaotic as officers dispersed the crowd at night using tear gas and flash-bang devices.

Authorities said demonstrators threw fireworks and tried to storm a barricade near a police station, but citizen video posted on Reddit and Facebook showed that the chaos began when an officer grabbed a pink umbrella that a demonstrator was holding just across a barricade. Other officers nearby then began spraying chemicals and firing flash-bangs.

Seattle's Office of Police Accountability said Monday it has received more than 1,200 complaints over the Seattle Police Department's handling of the demonstrations and looting, including reports that a young girl was tear-gassed, officers placed their knees on the necks of two people who were being arrested, and protesters twice grabbed unattended rifles out of police cars before being disarmed by a television news crew's security guard. Many of the incidents were captured on video.

On Tuesday, the agency said it was adding Monday night's use of pepper spray to disperse the crowd to the long list of events it's investigating. The agency, which is led by a civilian director and supervisors, uses civilian investigators as well as Seattle police sergeants to conduct its work, then presents its findings and recommendations to Police Chief Carmen Best.

Demonstrators in Washington and around the country have been protesting the killing of Floyd, a black man who died May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes even after he stopped moving and pleading for air.

On Monday afternoon large crowds of protesters again gathered in downtown Seattle for speeches and to march through the city’s core. Hundreds gathered outside City Hall and the crowd continued to grow as it made its way to the Capitol Hill neighborhood. At one point, video showed officers taking a knee with protesters in Capitol Hill in a show of solidarity.

North of downtown, near the University Village shopping mall, police barricaded a grocery store’s windows after some people smashed them.

In the Capitol Hill neighborhood police declared the protests a riot about 9 p.m., saying the decision was made “after a crowd threw rocks, bottles and fireworks at officers and attempted to breach barricades one block from the East Precinct.”

That explanation drew criticism from protesters and some city leaders. City Council Member Teresa Mosqueda tweeted a link to overhead video taken by a witness and posted on Reddit, which did not show projectiles from the crowd or attempts to breach the barricade in the moments before the chaos began.

Instead, it showed an officer grabbing the umbrella, and other officers using pepper spray as the demonstrator and officer played tug-of-war with it across a metal barrier.

“THIS IS NOT A RIOT,” Mosqueda tweeted.

Earlier Monday, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said that while the damage from weekend protests that turned violent must be condemned and those responsible prosecuted, “we will not allow that to obscure the justice of the underlying protest.”

Inslee said people are justifiably outraged following the killing of Floyd in Minnesota and emphasized the constitutional right to protest. But he said “violence and destruction has no place in this.”

“We just can’t allow violence to hijack peaceful protest,” Inslee said at a news conference.