An at-capacity King County courtroom watched a jury pool of 20 people get slowly narrowed down to 16 on Monday during the first day of an inquest into the death of Che Taylor, who was killed by two Seattle police officers in February of last year. The inquest, which is not a trial but rather a public fact finding commission, continues Tuesday and through the rest of the week.
Taylor, a 46-year-old African American man, was killed at close range by multiple shots from Seattle Police Department officers Michael Spaulding and Scott Miller, who are both white. Dash cam video of the incident shows the two officers quickly approaching Taylor, who is on the passenger side of a sedan, and telling him to “get down on the ground.” Taylor appears to comply, then disappears from the camera’s view before the two officers quickly open fire.
The two officers claim that they had earlier seen Taylor with a holstered handgun and then saw him reach for the gun as they approached him. A loaded handgun was later found inside the car. Miller and Spaulding said they feared for their lives and an SPD investigation in May found that the two officers complied with department policy.
Taylor’s family has strongly disagreed with SPD’s findings, arguing that the two officers gave conflicting orders and did not give Taylor enough time to comply.
This week’s inquest will seek to find out more facts behind the incident, with witnesses giving testimony and attorneys representing both the officers and Taylor’s family having the chance to cross examine them. The inquest will not determine civil or criminal liability, but the jury will be asked to answer questions at the end of inquest relating to the facts of the case. Jennifer Ritchie, a representative from the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s office, is also present at the inquest and the attorney’s office could decide to pursue charges at a later date.
Taylor’s family has not waited on any inquest or SPD investigation to take actions that they believe will help improve policing in this state. Taylor’s brother, Andre Taylor, and his sister, DeVitta Briscoe, have launched an initiative to change the Washington’s unusually restrictive laws for holding police officers accountable when they unjustly kill someone. The current law requires that the prosecution prove an officer used deadly force with malice and not in good faith, an unusually difficult requirement as compared to other states.
A Seattle Times investigation found that police killed 213 people between 2005 and 2014; only one officer faced charges stemming from those deadly encounters. That one officer, who was charged with manslaughter after shooting a man through the rear window of his car in 2009, was not convicted after the jury couldn’t agree he acted with malice.
A task force convened by the state legislature last year recommended that the words “malice” and “in good faith” be removed from state law. A bill introduced earlier this month in the state legislature would follow the task force’s recommendations and replace the “in good faith and without malice” requirement with “if a reasonable officer would have believed that the use of deadly force was necessary in light of all the facts and circumstances known to the officer at the time.”
The Black Lives Matter movement was frequently invoked by Judge Janet Garrow on Monday as she questioned the 20 prospective jurors. (Eight needed to be chosen from among the 20 before the inquest could continue.) It wasn’t clear if attorneys for the two officers had asked Garrow to follow this line of questioning or if it was the judge herself who brought it up.
Four prospective jurors were dismissed, three because the five-day inquest would be a financial hardship and one because of his close relationship with a current SPD officer.
Garrow went down the line of 20 prospective jurors and asked each one if they had strong opinions about the Black Lives Matter movement. Four of the twenty prospective jurors responded that they felt “all lives matter”; one of them was removed from the pool. Thirteen jurors emphatically stated that they stand with BLM; one of them was removed for the economic hardship of serving on the inquest. (The remaining three jurors demurred that they didn’t have strong opinions about BLM one way or another.)
One of the jurors was wearing a sweatshirt that had a number of political statements on it, including the words “black lives matter.” The day’s most emotional statements came after the Garrow asked the juror, who also said she had attended two BLM rallies, if she was worried what other members of the BLM movement would say if they heard she was responsible for any of this inquest’s findings.
The juror said her activity with BLM would not affect her fairness on the inquest. As soon as the juror exited the courtroom James Bible, one of the attorneys representing the Taylor Family, gave an impassioned speech questioning the motives of Garrow’s questions.
“That is a race issue, it was tough to hear and it was tough to watch,” Bible said.
Garrow reminded Bible that his fellow attorney, Corey Guilmette, had not raised any objection to the line of questioning when it was brought up in a private meeting between Garrow and the attorneys from each represented party.
Neither attorney representing the two SPD officers asked Garrow to remove the woman from the jury pool.
Another tense exchange occurred when Ted Buck, an attorney representing Officer Michael Spaulding, asked that questions about when medical attention was given to Taylor and how quickly the Seattle Fire Department responded to the scene not be presented to jurors because, in Brock’s words, Taylor wouldn’t have survived his injuries if he had been shot inside Harborview Medical Center. Garrow did not decide Monday how she would respond to Buck’s request.
David Kroman over at Crosscut published a dash cam video this month that showed Taylor spent seven minutes bleeding on the ground before any medical assistance was delivered to him. Taylor didn’t show any signs of movement during those seven minutes and was handcuffed during the last three minutes.
The inquest continues Tuesday, with Garrow expecting the inquest to be finalized by Friday of this week.
