News

May Day protesters face various charges in court

SEATTLE — Seattle police arrested seventeen protesters during the May Day protests on Wednesday. They were arrested for everything from assaulting a police officer to felony rioting.

Protesters appeared in two groups Thursday —those charged with felonies and others facing misdemeanors.

Thursday night all had bailed out except for 3 of the protesters.

After we saw the protesters in court, we went through raw video to find them in action.

Sebastian Harris, 21, was charged with obstruction.  After court we tried to talk to him but he said to “Get the F—away from me.”

Hours later he was willing to talk to us at his house. He told us, “One police [officer] decided to stop his bike right in front of me and check me with it and tell me to step back.

I said ‘no’ and that kept happening until I was pushed to the ground.”  He told us he was trying to get out of there to go home after participating in both rallies.

“I just wanted to be done with it and they kept bringing the fight to me at that last moment I decided it was important for me to resist because it was frustrating and difficult for me to see them push the whole march

back all the time, “ Harris told us. The video clearly shows Harris reacting when police told him to move. They pushed him first, he quickly pushed back.

Gabriel Garris is under investigation of assaulting a police officer and reckless endangerment.  When we talked to him outside the jail, he told us why, “ I was throwing flash bangs back at the police officers and spitting

in their faces.” He says he joined the protest to take a stand against police brutality.

KIRO-7 eyewitness news reporter Alison Grande asked Garris if it was worth getting arrested. “Yeah, I’m out today. They don’t have any proof,” he said.

But police say they do have proof with hours of video.

We went through  video shot be our photographers. We were able to see why some of the protesters were arrested, their crimes were caught on camera.

We looked at the arrest and then backtracked to see their behavior leading up to the arrest.

Now police are looking through their own video and asking for the public to send them video to help them pick out who is responsible for broken windows and other damage.