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   From: uncivilized.black@jungle-animals   
      
   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.   
      
   https://apnews.com/article/jury-damages-black-lives-matter-prote   
   ter-4dfc1c3275bfa3a618d733cc20aee460   
      
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