Separate viral video clips show Seattle police officers on bicycles running into pedestrians and one officer tripping over his own bike in an incident witnesses said somehow ended in the pedestrians being violently arrested. The footage was captured at a march in support of President Donald Trump on December 7, but those targeted were anti-Trump protesters at Westlake Park, according to the Seattle Times.
A Twitter user who goes by @spekulation shared a 26-second clip of the police encounter attracting three million views. “You guys need to check out this video of the protest in Seattle yesterday,” @spekulation tweeted on December 8. “This SPD officer *trips over his own bike*, and then uses it as an excuse to violently attack and arrest a protester 10 feet away from him [who was moving backward, obeying orders]. Appalling.” The social media user said in another tweet that the attack set off “a chaotic melee that causes other police to attack and arrest a bunch of other people who appear to also be obeying orders.” “This entire scene is a violent reminder of how dangerous officers can be when their egos are threatened,” @spekulation added in the tweet.
He also said just 20 minutes before that police encounter, a witness who goes by Jerry Savage shot the video of Seattle police officers “running into pedestrians with their bikes, and then violently arresting the victims for what they claimed was assault.” “Even for SPD, yesterday was a vicious escalation,” @spekulation said in the tweet.
The activist group Demand Utopia Seattle posted an extended version of the footage on Twitter the day of the rally. It shows an officer slamming a man against a building window. “You’re under arrest,” the officer can be heard saying.
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Seattle police Sgt. Sean Whitcomb, a spokesman for the department, told the Seattle Times Tuesday that the clip doesn’t show the scene in its entirety and that officers were trying to keep pro-Trump and anti-Trump protesters separate. The officer who tripped was in the process of arresting someone he believed had acted illegally, Whitcomb told the newspaper.
The crime the person is accused of committing wasn’t shown on the video, Whitcomb said. The incident ended in one protester arrested on assault and harassment allegations, another arrested on an obstruction charge and a third accused of assault, Whitcomb told the Seattle Times.
Social media response to the footage caught the attention of the Seattle Office of Police Accountability, which released a statement on Twitter Tuesday. “OPA has launched an investigation regarding this incident, including reviewing all available video and conducting interviews to determine whether violations of policy occurred,” the agency tweeted.
Seattle's Community Police Commission plans to discuss the incident at its next meeting Wednesday, the news site Patch reported. Seattle Chief of Police Carmen Best also released a statement on Twitter Tuesday saying she is aware of the arrests and referred the incident to the Office of Police Accountability. "As always, we remain committed to constitutional policing, supporting First Amendment rights for all," she said.