SEATTLE -- Just days after Seattle's mayor and police chief promised a monthlong moratorium on using a type of tear gas to disperse protesters, the department used it again during an overnight protest, bringing severe criticism Monday from City Council members, vows to overhaul the department and another call for the mayor's resignation.
"How many people need to write in about being gassed in their own homes? How many people have to be sprayed in the street every night or experience getting hit with flash bombs or rubber bullets?" Council Member Teresa Mosqueda said during a council briefing. "The mayor should ... ask herself if she is the right leader, and resign."
Council President Lorena Gonzalez and others also expressed their frustration with Mayor Jenny Durkan and the police, signaling radical change could be on the way.
Socialist Council Member Kshama Sawant had already called for Durkan's resignation. Gonzalez said the time is past for mere overhaul of the Police Department, and the council must think in a "transformational way" about how the city views public safety and funds the police.
"When I hear people say there's just a few bad apples on the police force, I adamantly disagree with that," said Council Member Debra Juarez. "It's just not a healthy tree. We need to plant a new tree."
Durkan's office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Mosqueda, the Seattle council's budget chairwoman, announced an inquest into the police budget to get a better understanding of how the department spends money. She said she wants to cut police funding by half and reinvest the money "in communities that we've failed," including in affordable housing and mass transit.
In her call to cut police funding, Mosqueda cited a new effort by nine members of the Minneapolis City Council, who announced plans Sunday to dismantle that city's Police Department. Those council members didn't provide details of their plan, but called for a new public-safety system to be developed with community members.
Mosqueda's calls follow a demand from Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County to decrease funding for police, and to spend more on health and social services.
Defunding calls are gaining momentum as proponents argue that past police overhaul efforts have failed. Rather than abandoning public-safety programs altogether, defunding advocates are often calling for policy changes that reduce reliance on law-enforcement officers, as well as a reallocation of policing budgets toward services such as health care and housing for black communities.
Earlier Sunday evening, a man drove a car at protesters, hit a barricade and is suspected of shooting a 27-year-old protester who had reached into the driver's side window in an attempt to stop him. The protester, who was shot in the shoulder, walked away from the scene while being attended to by medics, and police said they arrested the driver, identified as Nikolas Fernandez, for investigation of assault after he got out of the car brandishing a handgun.
The man who was shot, Daniel Gregory, was in "satisfactory" condition, said Tina Mankowski, a spokeswoman for Harborview Medical Center. He underwent surgery Monday morning for a fracture to his right arm from a gunshot wound.
Fernandez waived an initial court appearance Monday and was being held in lieu of $200,000 bond, KING-TV reported. It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer who could speak for him.
Hours later, the crowd became unruly and started throwing objects, police said. Officers ordered people to disperse and announced on Twitter that "CS gas has been authorized," referring to tear gas. In the same tweet, the department said there was a man with a gun in the intersection; it was not clear whether that referred to the same driver who had been arrested hours earlier, or, if it was a different gunman, why the department would use clouds of tear gas, potentially obscuring where he was.
The authorization to use the tear gas Sunday night came after Durkan and Best on Friday announced a 30-day moratorium on tear gas and a review of use of force after complaints from protesters and elected officials.
Durkan and Best have apologized over the use of tear gas and pepper spray on nonviolent protesters but have said police must deal with a small criminal element within the demonstrations. More than two dozen elected officials have signed a letter calling on the mayor and chief to drastically deescalate the Police Department's response.
Durkan on Sunday night said she would freeze spending on police technology, weapons, vehicles and buildings until further talks with community members and find $100 million in budget allocations for community needs. That money will not come from police budgets, as many protesters have demanded, Durkan said.
Information for this article was contributed by Gene Johnson of The Associated Press and by Meagan Flynn and Jay Greene of The Washington Post.
