Court says Seattle Police Department in contempt for use of pepper spray on BLM protesters

A US court has found the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) use of pepper spray against Black Lives Matter demonstrators this summer in contempt of a court order that banned such projectiles.

Richard Jones, a US District Court judge for Washington’s Western District, wrote on Monday that Seattle police made four “clear violations” of a preliminary injunction designed to stop the SPD using force against peaceful protesters.

The 27-page document was in response to a motion filed by Black Lives Matter of Seattle-King County, who alleged the abuses of the injunction against the city’s police department.

The judge said Seattle police used pepper spray, pepper balls, paintballs and blast balls - which release pepper gas when they explode - against protesters on four occasions and that “they were plain violations of the command that less lethal weapons should not be deployed indiscriminately into a crowd”.