Police deny targeting black activists

When two Seattle police bicycle officers tried to stop Kwame Garrett and his friend for jaywalking near Pioneer Square Wednesday morning, they had no idea who the men were, police said yesterday.

In particular, the officers didn't know that Garrett is the son of the man who assaulted former Mayor Paul Schell with a bullhorn last summer, a police spokesman said.

So as Garrett and Kenyatto Allah appeared before a judge yesterday at the King County Jail, where they were held on suspicion of attacking the officers, police said it was "positively ludicrous" for anyone to suggest that police had targeted the two African-American activists.

But within hours of Garrett's and Allah's arrests, their supporters called the officers' actions political retribution and accused them of racism and of brutalizing Garrett and Allah.

Police spokesman Duane Fish said, "If these two suspects hadn't jaywalked, these two officers wouldn't have made contact with them. What we have here is the suspects escalating the (situation) and the officers responding to the escalation.

"The bottom line is, a very minor infraction was turned into a felony assault, entirely by the two suspects' actions in this case."

A Seattle District Court judge yesterday set bail at $10,000 for Garrett, 25, and $5,000 for Allah, 29. King County prosecutors must either file charges today or set them free.

In court yesterday, only Allah's wife, Monica Amen, and her 7-month-old son, Netetahli Amen, showed up to ask the judge for her husband's release. Her words were inaudible through the security glass that prevents the public from hearing much of the proceedings held in that courtroom.

Allah's wife declined to comment as she left the jail.

Attorney William Broberg, who represented Allah and Garrett, told the judge the men strongly dispute the police allegations.

"I don't know what unarmed black man in America would grab a police officer," Broberg said after the hearing. "It does seem a little heavy-handed that they (police) would grab someone for jaywalking."

According to police reports, bike patrolman James Lee, who is Asian American, and James Shearer, who is white, were pedaling on their beat at Second Avenue and Yesler Way about 11:30 a.m. Wednesday when they saw Garrett and Allah jaywalking.

Police say Garrett and Allah refused to stop when told, so Shearer put his bike wheel in front of Garrett while Lee grabbed his elbow.

That's when Garrett put Lee in a headlock and yanked him off his bike, police said. When Shearer tried to help, Allah also grabbed Lee, Shearer wrote in his report.

Shearer squirted Garrett and Allah with pepper spray. Allah still wouldn't back off, and Garrett kept struggling with Lee, police said.

Two other bike officers — Brian Lundin, who is white, and David Blackmer, who is Native American — arrived and helped arrest Garrett and Allah, police said.

Neither Kwame Garrett nor Allah has a criminal record.

Garrett's father, James Cordell Garrett, also known as Omari Tahir-Garrett, a longtime Central Area activist, was sent to prison last week for his July 2001 attack on Schell. Allah earlier this year settled a federal lawsuit against the Seattle Police Department in which he alleged he and another friend had been roughed up by an officer in 1998.

"It is clear that the SPD has declared 'open season' on black activists" in the wake of James Cordell Garrett's conviction, one supporter protesting the arrests wrote in an e-mail to a reporter.

Meantime, police scoffed at any suggestion that stopping the men for jaywalking means they had been singled out.

Downtown officers make dozens of stops for jaywalking every week in the Pioneer Square area, said Fish, the police spokesman. Six pedestrians have been killed by vehicles in Seattle this year, Fish said.

"These laws are in place for a reason, and it's the officers' job to enforce these laws. It was the suspects who overreacted here," Fish said.

Casey Jones, who heads the Pioneer Square Community Association, said he has heard few, if any, complaints that police in the area are too heavy-handed in enforcing jaywalking laws.

He said he supports jaywalking enforcement "if this is part of an overall strategy to send a message that the rules also apply here in Pioneer Square."

But Jones added that if the police are placing too much emphasis on scofflaws, "we have other issues that are far more pressing than jaywalking."

Ian Ith: 464-2109 or iith@seattletimes.com.