SEATTLE — On Wednesday, August 19, the Seattle Police Department arrested a suspect who they believe assaulted a 47-year-old man that started recording a crowd of protesters outside of his house.
According to reports from the SPD, the man told the police that around 12 am on Thursday, July 30, he left the house to ask a crowd of protesters to be quiet because he could not sleep due to the protest. The police report said that the man was recording them and it made some people in the crowd angry.
They started pointing flashlights at him and then hit him in the head with a blunt object. The man told the officers that while a member of the crowd deleted the recording from his phone, other protesters provided first aid to him. As cars were blocking the area, the police could not arrive at the scene in that moment and a family member transported him to the hospital where they met with the officers.
After weeks of investigation, detectives identified a 27-year-old male who was a suspect in the case. Officers reported that when they were going to arrest the man he ran from them and fell to the ground, injuring himself. He was taken to the hospital and then booked to King County Jail for the ongoing assault investigation.
Kiro radio reported that the assault victim said that he was not confronting the crowd as many have reported. In the interview, the man claims he went out of his house to see the crowd because he was curious and he started taking pictures to share them with his friends. He said that some of the protesters confronted him and were asking what he was doing there.
In the interview, the victim said that a person was cutting him off when he was trying to leave. The man grabbed one of the flashlights that some protesters were putting in his face and “tossed it to the side.” He believes that set them off.
“Someone slipped into my blind spot or came up behind me, I don’t really know, and they hit me in the back right part of my head. And then I fell down. I think I got the concussion when I hit the ground,” the assault victim said in the interview with Kiro radio.
According to the Seattle Police Department, multiple witnesses and footage from surveillance cameras confirmed the victim’s story. There were also photos of blood splatter at the scene.
