Jury awards $6M to BLM protester Summer Taylor’s family; state ‘not negligent’ in death
Sep 12, 2024, 2:41 PM | Updated: 5:51 pm
A photo of Summer Taylor, who suffered critical injuries and died after being hit by a car while protesting over the weekend, sits among flowers at the King County Correctional Facility in Seattle where a hearing was held for the suspect in their death on July 6, 2020. (File photo: Elaine Thompson, AP)
(File photo: Elaine Thompson, AP)
A King County jury ruled on Thursday the state of Washington was not negligent in the 2020 death of Black Lives Matter protester Summer Taylor, according to multiple local reports.
Taylor, a 24-year-old veterinary assistant from Seattle, was killed on Interstate 5 (I-5) in Seattle in July 2020 when Dawit Kelete drove the wrong way onto an I-5 ramp and hit a group of demonstrators. The crash also severely injured another protester.
Taylor’s family had sued the state, claiming it failed to take necessary precautions to protect protesters on the freeway.
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Kelete pleaded guilty to reckless driving, vehicular manslaughter and vehicular assault with aggravating substantial injuries in July 2023 and was sentenced to 6½ years in prison last September.
The jury ruled that the Kelete must pay Taylor’s family $6 million in damages. The jury awarded $1,750,000 each to Taylor’s parents and $2,500,000 to their brother.
Arguments about whether the state was liable for Taylor’s death
The state patrol closed the interstate during nightly protests over the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. During the trial, attorneys for Taylor’s estate argued that the state was also responsible, while the state’s attorney contended that Taylor’s presence on the freeway was illegal.
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.
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Karen Koehler, the attorney representing Taylor’s family, argued that her death could have been prevented if the state’s transportation department and the Washington State Patrol had properly closed the Stewart Street exit ramp. She highlighted the lack of patrol cars, spike strips, flashing lights or barricades as evidence of negligence.
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.
Steve Puz, senior counsel for the Washington Attorney General’s Office, argued that both Kelete and Taylor were at fault: Kelete for driving the wrong way and Taylor for being on a vehicle-only roadway. He stated that the accident would not have happened if either had followed the law.
However, the jury concluded the state of Washington was not negligent in her death.
The family remembered Taylor as a lover of animals and an advocate for racial and LGBTQ+ justice.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Bill Kaczaraba is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here. Follow Bill on X here and email him here.
