Jury rules Washington was not negligent in death of protester killed on I-5 in 2020

LOS ANGELES — A jury has ruled that Washington state was not negligent in the civil trial over the death of Summer Taylor, a protester who was struck and killed by a car on Interstate 5 in 2020. Taylor was also found not negligent.

Taylor's family had originally asked the jury on Monday for $24 million in damages and that the state of Washington should be held liable for Taylor's death.

The jury found that the driver, Dawit Kelete, was the only one who acted negligently when he drove through a crowd of protesters. Kelete was found liable for $6 million in damages.

Attorney Karen Koehler claimed the Washington State Patrol did not do enough to stop Kelete from driving up an exit ramp in downtown Seattle and then driving toward the Black Lives Matter protest group standing on I-5.

Attorneys made their closing arguments on Monday, after which the judge instructed the jury to begin deliberations on Tuesday.

“His actions were egregious, they were rare, they were unusual,” said Steve Puz, lead attorney for the Washington attorney general's office, referring to Kelete's decision to drive up the exit ramp. “You all heard his testimony where he said he knew it was an exit ramp. He knew it was illegal to drive up it and he did it anyway, and to pretend otherwise is disrespectful.”

In response to the death of George Floyd, there were daily highway protests in late June and early July 2020.

Puz played a video in court on Monday showing a state police officer ordering protesters to exit the highway on June 15, 2020.

“It's not safe, I'm telling you now, there's traffic coming – I don't want you to get hurt,” the police officer tells the protesters on I-5. “You have to get off the highway.”

When the police officer asks them to leave the square, the demonstrators call him a “coward”.

“There's not a day, not a moment that goes by that this family isn't affected,” Koehler said. “They made the conscious, deliberate, absolutely knowing, but apparently uneducated decision to leave the ramps, the access ramps – exits or entrances – the third access point, open.”

Koehler argued that state police should have either posted someone at the exit or arrested protesters if they refused to exit the highway.

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“The state decided to change its rules. The rule was to keep the protesters off the highway and arrest them,” Koehler said. “This is an unprecedented circumstance. The (Department of Transportation) is allowing the protesters to be on the highway. Did their actions result in a reasonably safe environment?”

The incident sparked a debate about whether protesters should be allowed to block highways and other roads during demonstrations.

Puz argued that police officers were following operational plans that included closing freeway ramps and completely blocking the freeway several miles north of the protest.

“They blame the state for failing to stop their criminal behavior,” Puz said in his closing argument. “Mr. Kelete and Mx. Taylor were both negligent. They were both engaged in illegal activity at the time of this incident.”

An investigation revealed that Kelete intentionally drove the wrong way off the Stewart Street exit and then turned around on I-5 toward the protest group standing on the highway. Kelete claimed he was trying to get home to Renton and did not intend to attack the protesters.

Kelete pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to prison last year.