Another protester hit by the luxury vehicle was seriously injured.
A young protester died from the injuries she sustained when a luxury car crashed into her and another woman during a Black Lives Matter protest Saturday on a Seattle highway that has been closed for days due to civil unrest, she said. police.
Summer Taylor was pronounced dead at a local hospital hours after a 27-year-old man in a white Jaguar drove to a closed section of Interstate 5 where protests have taken place and crashed into her and another protester, police said .
Surveillance video captured the 2013 Jaguar apparently speeding down the highway, turning around cars supporting the protest that blocked the lanes and hit the two women who were walking on the shoulder, hitting them in the air, on the roof of the vehicle and on the pavement.
“Absolutely heartbreaking. Summer Taylor was just 24 years old and peacefully protesting Black Lives Matter when they were hit by a car,” Senator Kamala Harris, a California Democrat, said in a statement posted to Twitter on Sunday morning. “Thinking of her family during this difficult time and everyone in the current movement.”
The incident unfolded around 1:40 a.m. Saturday when the driver who was arrested and identified by authorities as Dawit Kelete, 27, of Seattle, allegedly entered the closed highway going the wrong way on a Exit ramp and drove at high speed towards A crowd of people protesting the death of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, authorities said.
“Very frankly, we don’t know, at this point in the investigation, what the motive was, what the reasoning was,” Capt. Ron Mead of the Washington State Patrol said at a press conference.
Mead said that, according to the preliminary investigation, drugs or alcohol were not factors in the incident.
After the episode, authorities authorized I-5 and warned protesters that anyone caught trying to march onto the highway will be arrested.
“The highway is simply not a safe place … We were afraid something like this would happen,” Mead said.
Mead said the driver was initially arrested on charges of vehicular assault and felony of hit and run. Kelete remained in jail without bail on Sunday.
“Those [charges] it could be updated depending on the progress of the investigation, “Mead said.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said in a tweet that “many others were almost beaten and witnessed this horrible event.”
Before the news of Taylor’s death, friends had established a GoFundMe page to help her recover from injuries.
“Summer is an incredibly strong and independent spirit,” wrote Becky Gilliam, who hosted the GoFundMe page that as of Sunday morning had raised more than $ 46,000.
Gilliam wrote that Taylor worked at a veterinary clinic, adding that she was a “bright and caring person whose presence brings joy and laughter to others.”
For weeks, police authorities have warned pedestrian protesters not to use the roads as the scene of demonstrations.
The section of Interstate 5 through downtown Seattle has been closed multiple times in recent weeks due to large-scale protests.
Taylor was taken to Harborview Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead. Authorities identified the other protester who was beaten as Diaz Love, 32, of Bellingham, Washington, who was in serious condition at Harborview, Mead said.
Love had been broadcasting the protest for about two hours on Facebook Live under the title “Black Femme March takes I-5.” The video ended abruptly after someone, according to the Associated Press, heard “Car!” Scream.
State police said the suspect continued to drive south on the highway and was chased by a protester in a car for about a mile before reaching the Jaguar and forcing him to stop.
The incident occurred about a month after a man allegedly driving a car went through a barricade and brandished a weapon against a group of protesters who had seized a section of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood and made it an autonomous zone. After several shootings, police last week vacated the occupied Capitol Hill protest zone, or CHOP zone.
ABC News’ William Mansell and Christina Carrega contributed to this report.
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