Jury awards $6M to family members of Black Lives Matter protester killed by a car on Seattle freeway

SEATTLE (AP) — A jury in Seattle ruled Thursday that the driver of a vehicle that struck and killed a Black Lives Matter protester on a closed interstate must pay the protester’s family $6 million.

The same King County jury found the state of Washington was not negligent in the death, the Seattle Times reported.

Summer Taylor, 24, was hit and killed by a car that drove the wrong way on Interstate 5 i n Seattle during protests in July 2020. Another protester was critically injured.

Taylor’s family sued the state, saying officials did not take proper precautions that would have protected the protesters on the interstate bridge. The driver, Dawit Kelete, 30, was sentenced in September 2023 to 6.5 years in prison for vehicular homicide and other charges.

The state patrol closed the interstate during nightly protests over the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. An attorney for Taylor’s family said the state was also to blame for not properly closing an exit ramp from the freeway.

“No patrol car, no spike strips, no flashing lights, no barricade, nothing. … That’s negligence,” the family’s attorney, Karen Koehler, said during closing arguments.

The state had argued that Taylor’s presence on the freeway was illegal, and Taylor and Kelete were both at fault.

“Had either of them chosen to follow the law that the rest of us are bound by, this doesn’t happen — this accident never happens,” Steve Puz, senior counsel for the Washington Attorney General’s Office, said during opening statements.

Damages included $1.75 million for each of Taylor’s parents and $2.5 million for their brother.

Taylor was a veterinary assistant who one day hoped to attend veterinary school at Washington State University. Taylor was remembered by their family as someone dedicated to racial and LGBTQ+ justice.