The Seattle Police Department (SPD) repeatedly tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed crowds during the first two weeks of protests, but the Seattle City Council sought to close the door on this tactic yesterday. Councilmember Kshama Sawant’s bill banning tear gas, pepper spray, and blast balls passed unanimously, as did her bill banning police from using chokehold techniques.
As an emergency ordinance, the bills do need Mayor Jenny Durkan’s signature to become law. However, given her own not-so-effective attempt at a 30-day ban on tear gas and mounting public pressure, it seems likely she will sign them and they would go into effect in late July. Since George Floyd was murdered on May 25th, Black Lives Matter protests have been a continuous wave ever since, as have violent police crackdowns.
In her statement, Councilmember Sawant gave the credit to the protesters for the chemical weapons ban, which she said was first-in-the-nation legislation.
“Our victory today was not a result of enlightenment by the political establishment, but because of the thousands of ordinary people–led by young people, especially young people of color–who have marched in the streets (facing down horrific police violence), organized, spoken up at City Council meetings, and fought for systemic change,” Sawant said. “Our mass protest movement deserves all the credit for winning Seattle’s historic ban on chemical weapons and chokeholds. If in the last few weeks you marched, rallied, organized, testified, or otherwise fought for Black Lives Matter and against police violence, then today’s victory is your victory.”
At the same time, Councilmember Sawant said the ban was just the first step and reaffirmed her commitment to cutting SPD’s budget in half. All Seattle City Councilmembers have expressed interest in trimming SPD’s budget, but most have not specifically committed to a 50% cut.
“This year, the Seattle Police Department budget is a staggering $409 million–fully 27% of the city’s discretionary spending. I was the only councilmember last fall to vote against this appalling budget decision,” Councilmember Sawant said in a statement. “My office has begun discussions with community activists, organizers, affordable housing developers, young Black and brown leaders, clergy, and others around cutting the police budget by at least 50%. In the next two weeks, my office will be fighting alongside the movement to bring forward our legislation to defund the police by at least 50%.” [Emphasis hers.]
Councilmember Sawant has sharply criticized Councilmember Lisa Herbold for attempting to water down her legislation and delay it a week. One Herbold amendment would have allowed “less lethal” weapons like pepper spray in non-crowd control or free speech situations, arguing the unintended consequence might be police using more lethal weapons. Sawant called the amendment “racist” and a betrayal since it would “create giant, truck-sized loopholes that will allow these weapons to be used in virtually any situation.”
A federal judge did grant an injunction on the use of tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper spray, blast balls, and chokeholds on June 12th that will be in effect through September. Councilmember Herbold suggested that meant they had time to finetune, but that order included significant loopholes, since it was tailored to crowd control situations and included exemptions for where the officers lives are at stake or when the police chief deems other measures ineffective.
