A protester was reportedly taken into custody today after interrupting Mayor Jenny Durkan during an appearance at Elliott Bay Books in Capitol Hill.
We were not there to see it go down, but KOMO reported that a small group of protesters (at first labeled “anarchists” by KOMO) shouted and cursed at Durkan before she started making remarks, and that one male protester was taken into custody. (You can watch the videos here.)
An employee of a clothing store next door said he watched the arrest take place. Aedan Catel, 24, said the man, who was not much taller than five feet, was sitting on the steps of Totokaelo when two squad cars arrived. Catel said officers performed a physical search on the man while his two friends, seen in the video, asked officers why their friend was being arrested and not them. Catel said that he hadn’t seen what happened inside the store, but to him, the number of police who responded to the scene seemed “over the top.”
Tracy Taylor, general manager at Elliott Bay, said that the person who was arrested “was being disruptive and loud, and interfering with our business, and going around in the store.”
“It happens all the time, year-round, and we ask those people to leave, and if they don’t we sometimes we unfortunately have them no-trespassed,” she said. She said she believed someone from the book store called the police.
Seattle police spokesperson Detective Patrick Michaud confirmed that a man had been taken into custody on a trespassing charge after officers were dispatched to Elliott Bay on a disturbance call around 12:30.
