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TexasTowelie

(111,314 posts)
Sat Jan 6, 2018, 12:01 PM Jan 2018

City Agrees to Pay $85,000 to Settle Civil Rights Suit Over Black Lives Matter Activist's Arrest

More than two years after a Seattle police officer was accused of using a racial slur during the arrest of Black Lives Matter activist Jorge Torres, the city has agreed to settle a civil rights lawsuit filed by the activist for a sum of $85,000.

As former Stranger writer Ansel Herz reported here, Torres led a series of Black Lives Matter protests in 2014. During a protest at the end of the year, police arrested Torres on charges of "reckless endangerment" and "pedestrian interference." Prosecutors later dropped the charges in the "interests of justice."

Torres' arrest occurred just two years after the police department entered into a consent decree with the US Department of Justice over findings of unconstitutional and biased policing. In October of last year, the Department of Justice told a federal judge that Seattle police had fulfilled their court-ordered reforms as part of the consent decree agreement.

But Torres' case didn't end after prosecutors dropped charges. Shortly before Torres' arrest, dash cam video recorded a Seattle police officer commanding others to go "just get that fucking wet-ahh" in the pursuit of Torres. Torres, his lawyer, and the Community Policing Commission alleged that the video showed that the officer had just stopped short of calling Torres a "wetback." Another dash cam recording captured an officer saying, "If we can get him for pedestrian interference or something along those lines, we'll deny them their leader... A small Hispanic male—he's got a megaphone who appears to be the leader of the group at this time."

Read more: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/01/03/25672715/city-will-pay-85000-to-settle-civil-rights-suit-with-black-lives-matter-activist-arrested-by-police

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