Former Seattle firefighters, girlfriend acquitted in Pioneer Square homeless beating
Dec 10, 2014, 4:54 PM | Updated: Dec 11, 2014, 7:39 am
Two former Seattle firefighters and another woman charged with beating several homeless men in Pioneer Square have been acquitted.
A Seattle Municipal Court jury reached the verdict Wednesday after deliberating for only two hours.
Robert Howell, 47, Scott Bullene, 46, and Bullene’s girlfriend Mia Jarvinen, 38, were charged with fourth-degree assault and malicious harassment – the state’s equivalent of a hate crime – for the March 15 attack.
Seattle city prosecutors called it a “brutal attack”, saying the defendants went after the victims because they were lying down on the Fallen Firefighter Memorial and were homeless.
Witnesses told police Jarvinen yelled at one homeless man for sleeping on the Fallen Firefighter Memorial and then kicked him. One of the firefighters hit the man with a stick and the other joined in the attack.
The homeless man reportedly stood up to defend himself and stabbed Bullene with a knife.
One of the firefighters then went back and witnesses said he attacked a second homeless man.
But Jarvenin testified the confrontation started when Howell spotted a man urinating on the memorial and called him out, trying to get him and several others to leave. She said the altercation happened only after several began moving towards them aggressively, The Seattle Times reports.
Attorneys for the firefighters painted them as the victims, saying they got caught up in “an unfortunate, complex and confusing fracas,” the Times reports.
But prosecutors allege Bullene was the initial aggressor and and only got stabbed after taking a walking stick from a 54-year-old homeless man with a prosthetic leg and beating him with it.
“Although we are disappointed in the verdicts, we respect the jurors’ decision and thank them for their service,” said Kimberly Mills, spokesperson for the Seattle City Attorney’s Office, in a statement.
If they had been convicted, each of the defendants’ would have faced up to 364 days in jail and a fine of up to $5,000.
The two firefighters were fired in August. Fire Chief Gregory Dean previously apologized for their actions.
