Demonstration on Pike St headed WB from Broadway. Please use caution in the area and expect delays due to increased pedestrian presence. pic.twitter.com/DnLGlmC684

— SDOT Traffic (@SDOTtraffic) November 20, 2021

A group of people dressed in black bloc marched around Cal Anderson Friday night while a small protest gathered Sunday night at Capitol Hill’s Seattle Central to demonstrate after last week’s acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse on all counts in the 2020 Kenosha shootings.

Friday night, a group of a few dozen was reported marching on Broadway and through Pike/Pine. Police reported the scene as “a group size of about 75 people all dressed in black attire with helmets, shields, face coverings and protective eyewear.” SPD says it formed a “task force” with officers from other precincts coming to the area due to the size of the group “and small number of officers.” No significant property damage was reported and SPD said it made no arrests.

A smaller protest also formed Sunday night at Seattle Central. While some media reports erroneously confused it with this Seattle Central demonstration, the large march that passed through downtown Seattle Sunday night was a protest against the Biden administration sanction of Eritrea as the Ethiopian civil war continues.

A year ago this week, CHS examined the slowing pace of protest in the neighborhood. The limited demonstrations over the weekend continue the pattern in 2021 as large protests and marches have mostly faded away after months of Black Lives Matter and anti-police unrest in the city and Seattle Police declaring multiple riots.

The Rittenhouse verdict, meanwhile, raises new questions for a protest related shooting case here on Capitol Hill. Two months before Kenosha, an unarmed man shot as he tried to disarm the brother of an East Precinct officer who drove into a Black Lives Matter demonstration crowd at 11th and Pine in June 2020. Dan Gregory, the man who was shot, is being nominated for the Carnegie Medal, an award presented for acts of extraordinary heroism. Nikolas Fernandez was charged with one count of first degree assault and claimed self-defense as he pleaded not guilty. His trial is currently slated to begin in early February.

HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.