On the night of Friday, February 18, I was lounging at home in Capitol Hill when my Twitter feed caught wind of Seattle Police Department (SPD) protests raging in downtown.  These were all in resistance to police brutality, with a particular focus on the recent decision to not prosecute former SPD officer Ian Birk in the shooting of homeless Native American woodcarver John T. Williams.  Reportedly, there was a group of around 150 participants, many wearing all-black and some with masks. They had been pepper sprayed in Pioneer Square, laid down in the streets of Westlake, and were now marching to my neck of the woods on the Hill. I grabbed my camera and ran outside just as they paraded down Broadway, stalling traffic along the way. I snapped some photos of the march, which ended at the East Precinct up on 12th Ave, where cops decked out in riot gear firmly blocked the way. Seattle superhero Phoenix Jones even made an appearance at an attempt to keep the peace.

Peep some photos up on Flickr, and a full story and gallery on Seattlest. I was also honored to have the above photo featured on the Flickr Blog series, “Unrest in the world this weekend,” which says: “There have already been 9,512 images posted to Flickr since Friday with the word protest and the weekend isn’t over at the time of this writing. (Last weekend there were only 2,261.)”