Report: SPD response to protesters at Christian rally unfair

A review of a violent Seattle police response to protesters demonstrating against a conservative Christian group’s rally at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill last spring found failed communications, unfair expectations and cultural ignorance by police and city permitting officials all contributed to the bad outcome.

A seven-hour standoff between demonstrators and police led to 23 arrests and 16 reported instances where police used force against the crowd. One police commander was recorded on body camera stating, We are going in this time with guns blazing. … We are past talking. We are here to (expletive) people up now.”

The review was conducted by the Seattle police Office of Inspector General for public safety and included members of the community and representatives from the Police Department, one of whom apologized for the language captured on the body-camera video.

The so-called “sentinel review” of the incident does not represent a consensus of panel members and was cut short after one member breached confidentiality and spoke publicly about the process and findings, Inspector General Lisa Judge said.

Overall, however, Judge said conclusions of citizen panel members included SPD personnel’s lack of cultural awareness of the significance to the LGBTQ+ community of Cal Anderson Park, the site of the city’s earlier Pride celebrations, which was renamed in 2003 to honor the state’s first openly gay lawmaker.

Seattle police spokesperson Sgt. Patrick Michaud said in a statement Thursday that the department was committed to improving its work to protect the peace and First Amendment rights. Michaud said the department takes the report seriously and has implemented some of its recommendations, including “rebuilding community legitimacy and trust” through the department’s Our City, Our Safety meetings, which are monthly, town-hall-style community meetings being scheduled this year throughout the city.

Seattle Parks and Recreation approved a permit for the group Mayday USA — a conservative Christian group — to hold a daylong celebration there on May 24. It was part of the group’s five-city tour promoting anti-LGBTQ+, anti-abortion viewpoints

and advocating for “the sanctity of human life (and) the sacrality of biological gender,” according to the 81-page review released Thursday.

SPD was not told about the event until just days before it occurred, according to the review, leaving it scrambling to gather intelligence and leading to miscalculations about counterdemonstrators and the propensity for violence.

“The lack of acknowledgement or understanding of this context by SPD contributed to the heightening tensions among police and counterdemonstrators,” the review concluded.

Moreover, SPD used “outdated assumptions” — stemming back to the 1999 World Trade Organization riots and the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests — about protesters, labeling them “black bloc” and “antifa,” an umbrella description often used for far-left activists who use similar, sometimes aggressive, protest tactics and generally oppose white supremacy and authoritarianism, with no centralized structure or group leader. SPD also failed to acknowledge diversity among the groups gathered to oppose the Mayday USA message or rally, according to the report. This led the department “to misjudge the need for more significant crowd control tactics, including use of force,” the report said.

The report outlined 66 factors that contributed to misunderstandings and police violence during the protests and included 24 recommendations to mitigate the likelihood of similar incidents in the future, many of which echoed findings from detailed reviews of the violent police response to the 2020 protests following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis.

The review found that SPD needs to “shift its mindset when responding to demonstrations by minimizing the belief that protesters work as a unified oppositional group, rather than a diverse population of individuals with varying reasons for attending.”

Terminology used by police early on underscored these prejudices, according to the report. Mayday USA was referenced as a “church group” in briefings, while police intelligence officials and others used “antifa,” “black bloc” and “anarchists” to refer to those expected to attend the counterdemonstration.

“It became clear that SPD uses the terms ‘antifa’ and ‘black bloc’ interchangeably and with far less nuance than community members,” the review states. “Applying them to anyone who identifies as ‘anti-fascist’ or wears black to demonstrations was described by community panelists as ‘careless’ and ‘escalatory.’”

“Community panelists described black bloc as a defensive means against police violence,” the review concluded.

The department also failed to account for the national political atmosphere swirling at the time: “The rally came after five months of federal actions harming the transgender community … and prompted many in the community to believe Mayday USA was intent on confrontation,” the review stated.

The review noted SPD approached Mayday USA organizers at one point and urged them to move to Seattle Center, but the request was declined. First Amendment considerations, with Cal Anderson being a public park, prevented the city from unilaterally moving it somewhere else.

The review acknowledged weak spots in the permitting process, particularly the fact that Seattle Parks — which permitted the rally on April 8 — did not notify SPD until May 14, giving the department just 10 days to prepare and gather intelligence. As a result, the department’s primary crowd-control liaison mechanism — officers assigned to the Police Office Engagement Teams — was woefully understaffed. Just four POET officers were assigned. Police on the review panel said as many as 10 were needed.

“There was limited opportunity for POET to pre-engage with community, due both to time constraints and poor or nonexistent LGBTQ+ community relationships,” the review pointed out. At the time of the rally, the department’s LGBTQ+ liaison post was vacant, it said.

How those officers interacted with the two groups was also reviewed. Their relationship with Mayday USA security officials was cordial and explanatory, while their interactions with the counterdemonstrators were often confrontational — even hostile — and directive.

Indeed, police that day adopted terminology used by the Mayday USA officials, referring to demonstrators as “transtifa,” which community members said was pejorative.

“The strong visible presence of SPD was itself escalatory for counterdemonstrators, who felt targeted based on their identities and felt SPD was there to protect an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group in a park with historical significance for the LGBTQ+ community,” the review stated.

Police ultimately reacted to the Mayday USA counterdemonstrators with batons, pepper spray and pepper balls, with the initial confrontation coming after a demonstrator took three balloons from a Mayday USA concession and released them into the air. Bicycle officers rushed into the crowd, knocking uninvolved demonstrators aside, an action that led to 11 of the 23 arrests that day. The individual who released the balloons was not captured.

Other arrests resulted from demonstrators bumping up against a wall of police bicycles used as a barrier between the two groups. Community reviewers, including some who were at the protest, noted the bikes were set up on uneven ground and were easily upset.

The review said there was evidence that SPD Community Response Group officers violated the city’s crowd-control policy, which requires officers to target their arrests of “bad actors” after isolating them so as not to antagonize or injure others.

“The deployment of … bicycle officers into the crowd to arrest the identified individuals was not consistent with that policy or training and resulted in officers striking numerous peaceful counterdemonstrators without warning or opportunity to move, the review found.