Protesters gathered in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood Sunday for a ninth day of protests against racial injustice and police brutality concretized in the killing of George Floyd. The protest's peace was first shattered when a black car drove toward a crowd demonstrating near 11th Avenue and Pine Street shortly before 8:30 p.m. The driver appears to have shot a 27-year-old man who reached into his car, purportedly to protect other protesters, according to video of the incident and The Seattle Times.
The driver, who is white, then walked through the crowd with his gun drawn, winding toward the line of police, where he and his gun were taken into custody. The protester he shot in the arm, who is black, was taken to the hospital, where he is in stable condition.
After that incident, tensions continued to mount between Seattle police warning protesters to stop advancing past a barricade they had erected and some protesters advancing anyway. Around midnight, the Times reports, "police used flash-bangs, pepper spray, and tear gas against the remaining crowd," and with gas hanging in the street, "explosions from the flash-bangs continued for at least 20 minutes." The Stranger's Chase Burns captured some of the melee from the newspaper's offices, where the gas eventually rose to and left staff coughing and crying.
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It was "a prolonged and intense confrontation," The Stranger's Rich Smith reports. "Some protesters batted away projectiles with umbrellas, tossed traffic cones, shined laser pointers, and threw bottles and fireworks at police as they fell back. Others stood with their hands raised, bright lights shining in their faces." By 1 a.m. there were only a few dozen protesters and police facing off, he adds. "The Marshall Law Band played live on 11th Ave for large stretches of the conflict, if not the whole time."
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