Jury awards $680,000 to Seattle protesters arrested and jailed for chalk graffiti

The city of Seattle must pay $680,000, including punitive damages, to four people who were arrested and detained for using sidewalk chalk to write anti-police messages on a makeshift concrete barricade outside the SPD’s East Precinct building during a protest against police brutality in January 2021. The jury’s verdict came after a six-day trial in U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman’s courtroom.

The four plaintiffs in the case — Derek Tucson, Robin Snyder, Monsiere de Castro and Eric Moya-Delgado — were arrested and booked into the King County Jail on Jan. 1, 2021, after writing messages in chalk on a makeshift concrete wall outside the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct. The county jail was not accepting admissions at the time because of COVID, but according to the lawsuit, SPD was able to override the county’s policies by applying what’s known as a “protester exception.”

Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison argued on behalf of the SPD that the chalked messages – including “BLM,” “peaceful protest” and “fuck the SPD” – violated a local law against “damage to property,” a serious offense punishable by up to 364 days in jail.

“Based on the evidence presented at trial, the jury concluded that the defendants arrested and charged the plaintiffs because of the content or opinion of their speech,” Braden Pence, a lawyer for the four plaintiffs, said in a statement. “We hope this verdict serves as a warning and lesson to police officers and other government officials across the country who violate the First Amendment – that they will be held accountable when they arrest and detain people for protected speech.”

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Last June, Pechman issued a temporary restraining order against the part of the law on criminal damage that specifically addresses graffiti, calling it so vaguely worded that it criminalizes “innocent drawings,” including chalk drawings by children on sidewalks. In practice, Judge Marsha Pechman said, the law allows police to arbitrarily decide what speech is acceptable and what is grounds for arrest based on expression, posing “a real and significant threat of censorship.”

Although the injunction preventing the city from enforcing its graffiti law was ultimately lifted, the city’s district attorney’s office continued to pursue the underlying case.

The lawsuit cited several examples in which police have encouraged and even participated in sidewalk chalking when it supported their political views – for example, during the “Back the Blue” event in the summer of 2020, when protests against police brutality were taking place across the city, messages were written in chalk on the sidewalk in front of City Hall.

According to the protesters’ lawyers, the jury concluded not only that SPD police officers made the wrong decision in arresting and detaining the four defendants, but also that their decisions were “retaliatory” and that they acted “with malice, oppression, or reckless disregard for the plaintiffs’ rights.”

A spokesperson for City Attorney Ann Davison did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday morning.

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