Following up on a violent New Year's Day arrest, Scott Gutierrez and
Levi Pulkkinen put together a piece on Marcel Richardson, a 23-year-old West Seattle man arrested at Seattle Center after a run-in with police. You can get the full story here.

Because of a settlement, obstruction of justice and resisting arrest charges against Richardson will be dropped so long as he stays out of trouble for the next six months. He hasn't yet decided whether he'll file a civil suit against Seattle police or the King County Sheriff's Office.

As it happened, a KOMO/TV crew was covering the Seattle Center New Year's celebration nearby when the altercation began and caught most it on tape. It was one of two videos of the incident, neither of which captures the initial confrontation between Richardson and King County deputies who pulled him from the door of a McDonald's restaurant at Fifth Avenue North and Broad Street.

Richardson had been asking to be allowed to rejoin his friends in the McDonald's, which had locked its doors at police request because of a gathering crowd outside. He'd stepped out to turn off his car alarm and found himself locked out.

According to Richardson, the deputies grabbed him, patted him down and told him to leave. When he demanded they tell him why he was pulled from the door, one of the deputies soaked him with pepper spray.

The video from KOMO – the P-I's news partner – picks up moments after the initial altercation, showing Richardson running half-blind toward a group of police and firefighters. The video from the scene starts about 25 seconds into the clip.

The second video, one shot by Richardson's cousin and shared with us by Richardson's attorney, shows Richardson moments before the incident. He appeared to be calmly talking to a McDonald's clerk, trying to be let back in to the resturaunt.

The video goes on to show an officer striking a friend of Richardson's with what looked like a long-handled flashlight as the young man walked toward Richardson, who was by then pinned to the ground by police. An officer also fired pepper spray at the cameraman.

After-action reports filed by Seattle police describe the scene somewhat differently from the videos, but most capture the chaotic turn that night had taken.

Compared with the video, several reports overstate Richardson's level of resistance moments before he was shot with a Taser. One officer claims Richardson was "still struggling violently" at a time when the video shows him on his hands and knees.

Explaining their reaction, several officers also note that, when they saw Richardson running toward them half-blind, they thought he'd assaulted an officer.

"As he ran towards me, I had to assume that since he was being chased by so many officers and deputies, he must have committed a crime," Officer Phillip Morrison said in a statement.

Richardson's attorney, Michael Schwartz, said the tapes of the incident likely saved his client from a conviction, and at least encouraged prosecutors to seek a settlement.

"I hate to think what would have happened if they hadn't existed," he said.


Video and Story: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/seattle911/archives/153009.asp