Car Brigade Facing Arrests & Impoundments
Police Accountability Journalist for Publicola.com, Paul Kiefer, discusses his investigative report into members of the Seattle Protests car brigade facing arrests and impoundments of their vehicles.
TRANSCRIPT:
Omari Salisbury
All right here we're Paul Kiefer the police accountability reporter for publicola.com. How are you today?
Paul Kiefer
I'm all right. How you doing?
Omari Salisbury
Fantastic. All right, I came across this on on the South Seattle Emerald but it is actually originally published on publicola.com. So on here on this South Seattle Emerald says despite months of arrest and impoundments the car brigade is still protecting Seattle's protesters. You wrote this. Tell us about it.
Paul Kiefer
Yeah. So in order to pull this together, it took about like a month of reporting. Surprisingly, I wound up interviewing five members of what's called the car brigade. It formed in July in response to car attacks across the country. I think people probably heard about the frequency of car attacks on Black Lives Matter protesters in late May, June and July. Car brigade formed as a response to that. It's people who provide a perimeter of cars around protest.
I managed to get in touch with five of the drivers and with an attorney representing one of the drivers. I did a ride along. I got my hands on arrest reports and warrants that shine a little bit of light into the arrests that have taken place between early August and the beginning of October. What comes through from interviews with the drivers and then from the warrants and warrant affidavits is that on the SPD side.
SPD believes that that the car brigade is not actually honest in its motivations. They say that that the car brigade is not there to protect protesters. In fact, when car brigade is present at protests where something like property damage occurs, then car brigade is there to protect protesters from getting arrested and are therefore criminally liable as accomplices to the property damage.
But what the car brigade says is, we are only there to protect protesters and to these arrests, and there have been I think 17 people arrested and there have been 13 cars impounded, what the car brigrade says is those arrests and seizures are intended to intimidate drivers out of volunteering for the car brigade and therefore to strip marchers of their protective perimeter and therefore to scare marchers into giving up. And so you know, thereby ending the nightly marches that we've seen, you know, for over 150 days now. So that's the real gist of it.
Omari Salisbury
Right. And now in going over some of this and some of the additional deeper details here. It looks like I'm in reading, it's not just a random officers who are who are making the arrest when our brigade members are arrested. You're saying that is the detective units that are actually making an arrest?
Paul Kiefer
Yeah, it's it seemed to sort of switch. So the first care brigade arrests actually were overseen by a sergeant named Michael Teton, who, only two days before those arrests actually had tried to drive his car into a small group of protesters, and he said he was trying to chase a perp and he was subsequently you know, put under investigation by the OPA and put on administrative leave. So that's the first three arrests. Ironically, you know, he was the person responsible for arresting a group of people who ostensibly volunteer to protect marchers from getting hit by cars, you know, like the one he was driving.
After that, the SPD seems to have been assigning whoever they have to this in these investigations into car brigade drivers that will lead to that part of rebuttable part of criminal conspiracy so they've assigned people from the homicide unit, from the narcotics unit, from the internet sex crimes against children unit. Franklin Pablocky, who is a detective with the West precinct's burglary squad, and who is notoriously a member of or he's notoriously listed on the Brady list, which is a list kept by the city attorney's office in the King County prosecutors of officers with records of dishonesty who can't in most cases testify before a court. Publocky handled more than one of these impoundments and when I say handled it means that they're they assume responsibility for impounded cars, the items inside of them, and assume responsibility for kind of the investigation that they hope will lead to charges against the protesters. Though none of them have this far. But it you know, it's it's kind of a sign that the department is scrambling to assign resources to these arrests and actually shifting them out of other units including out of the homicide unit, which is pretty overburdened right now they are putting a pretty high priority on evidently on these car seizures because they view the car brigade as a threat.
Omari Salisbury
Right. And something else I see here is that you're able to get ahold of an affidavit warrant, and in the warrant and also listed of some federal agencies in the warrant. Now two things is one, how come you're only able to get one warrant or the warrants under seal? Or you just weren't able to access them? And two, what, if anything, does that say that like federal agencies, like the FBI or the ATF, are listed there in the warrant?
Paul Kiefer
So to answer your first question, the reason why I can only get one is Yeah, they've been SPD, requested that they be sealed. They're typically an SPD detective from the narcotics department, because they were requested that the warrant affidavits be sealed. So I managed to get one because I think it was sent an error to a driver and they sent it to me. But the reason why they said they sealed them was that, you know, apparently, if if word of this investigation got out, it would threaten the investigation and threaten the security of law enforcement is what it said. So, you know, evidently, I have my hands on something that I'm not supposed to have my hands on. But what it reveals is that, I think we already knew that, you know, the SPD, have been working with federal law enforcement partners, on things like that, you know, attempted arson of the East precinct, that they've tapped the FBI and ATF to get involved in protest investigations. And the fact that the ATF and the FBI were mentioned in this warrant affidavit as people taking part in the investigations of criminal groups responsible for crimes during protests mean, and the fact that, you know, then SPD was linking the car brigade to those criminal groups means that there's, you know, possibility, but unclear because all these warrant affidavits are sealed, that the FBI could in some way be involved in the investigations of the car brigade members, which would mean that, you know, they would consider federal charges, but that would have to go to a federal grand jury. And, you know, there's not enough evidence probably for this to even result in charges from the King County Prosecutor, let alone a federal grand jury. But nevertheless it's signals that SPD's collaboration with the FBI has not ended, and maybe more extensive than we know.
Omari Salisbury
All right. And the other thing that I see here is that what you're saying is, as of late, some of the tactics have changed, and that the arrests are down, and impoundments are down, but citations are up. Do you think that is a change, a specific change in policy with SPD?
Paul Kiefer
So what what the attorney for the car brigade driver told me is that, yeah, so first of all, in the past two weeks, essentially SPD has stopped arresting people, and they've only been handing out traffic citations, and what the attorney for the car brigade driver told me is that she thinks it's because thus far, the King County Prosector, you know, it's been, you know, the first arrest August 14, it's been a long time, and there have been no charges brought against any of these drivers. And so she thinks SPD is kind of sick and tired of the prosecutor's office for not pursuing charges and will therefore find some other means to harass or intimidate drivers. I mean, that's how she casts it. And, and in her eyes, the citations are a way for SPD to sort of challenge or intimidate or harass drivers without having to lean on prosecutors, they don't know they can do it more or less, without secondary support. And at this point, you know, drivers have had to pay for, you know, getting their car out of impoundment or, you know, repairing broken windows, that sort of thing, pay bail. So, you know, it's not like adding a financial burden is nothing I mean, it's it's certainly less significant than having to face jail time, or, you know, losing your car for two weeks and then losing your job as a consequence, but it's, you know, repeated citation certainly are, are weak.
Omari Salisbury
Right? What do you say on the other side of this are people who are like, Hey, you know, I don't want cars blocking my neighborhood for an hour while I'm trying to get home or, you know, my street is blocked by the car.
Paul Kiefer
Yeah, so legally, protesters have the right to block streets with cars or on foot, it's protected. It's in the Seattle municipal code. And then theoretically, that right ends when SPD issues a dispersal order but an SPD incident commander can issue dispersal order whenever they want. I mean more, it's just up to their discretion. So you know, in in the situations in which people are blocking the street and SPD hasn't issued a dispersal order, a driver who is just impatient, who wants to get home faster is we'll still have to contend with the fact that that the protest is protected by the First Amendment is protected by the municipal code. And then you know, if there's a dispersal or It's worth asking whether the dispersal order was actually necessary or whether it's just you know, SPD doesn't like the convenience of protests that are protected by the First Amendment. The other thing to note is that there are all these drivers who have gotten impatient with marches and who have then tried to drive through them. I mean, according to the the car brigade that happens on pretty much a nightly basis, someone usually an impatient commuter, but sometimes someone who's actually like actively hostile against the Black Lives Matter movement or hostile to the Black Lives Matter movement will try to drive through marches, which is precisely why the car brigade it has to be there, so that people don't get hit by, you know, the person who wanted to get home 15 minutes earlier. So, you know, all in all, the marches are going to continue as long as they can, I mean, the marchers and the car brigade dedicated to that the car brigade will have to be there because impatient commuters wind up posing a security threat to the lives of the marchers.
Omari Salisbury
Right. And before I let you go here, just to hit him right back here on the headline to saying despite months of arrest and impoundments, the car brigade is still protecting Seattle protesters. After your interview with these five car brigade drivers, their lawyer, protesters, What's your feeling in regards of momentum with it with the car brigade? I know that some people have dropped off but you know, some people have picked up what's the overall momentum? Do you feel that they can keep up the pace?
Paul Kiefer
Broadly, the impression I got is that they've lost probably half of the drivers that they originally they started with in July, you know, they started with this big mass of drivers in July it was right after summer Taylor got killed on I five and Diaz Love was injured. It was right after Molly Clark, another SPD officer who was off duty, tried to drive a car into a group of protesters on Olive and was stopped by kind of a proto car brigade volunteer.
So initially they started with like a whole bunch of cars. And now they've lost about half of them because of the threat of arrest and because of the threat of impoundment. And now because of the threat of repeated citations, which are a financial burden, only a limited few people who are both in kind of the privileged position to be able to kind of hold the job, even if they lose their car for two weeks. And who are also you know, absolutely certain that they that they want to be out there even if there's the risk of them having their their windows smashed, only they are really able to stick around night after night. And it means that they they are having to do less with more. And then there are tons of people who would love to be doing this work. But you know, the consequences have just been have been too great.
I spoke to one driver who lost lost her job as a nanny, because the the mother of the kids she nannied for, didn't approve of her going to jail and was worried about about the spread of covid. There have been people who have you know, they're involved in custody hearings right now, and they can't get an arrest on their record because they don't want to like lose custody of their grandkids. So there are tons of people who are saying, you know, I want to be out there protecting protesters because I want marches to continue because the movement needs to continue. But I can't because you know, as it stands, SPD has been arresting people at peaceful marches. So you can't necessarily guarantee that you won't get arrested if you're out there guarding a visual, it happened to someone they got charged for the misdemeanor, their car got impounded. You can't guarantee that you're going to be safe if you're driving home because one guy got arrested in Edmonds by SPD they actually didn't do a hot pursuit. They followed him to Edmonds and then turned on their sirens. So it's there's no guarantee that you can be safe in any way as a car brigade driver from SPD. And so people are now reticent to do it. And they're, they're going to have to just tactically
Omari Salisbury
Alright, well, before we let you go, how can people catch up with you on Twitter, your email?
Paul Kiefer
You can email me at Paul at publicola.com. So thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.
Omari Salisbury
All right. We'll be talking to you soon.
Paul Kiefer
Absolutely.
