Seattle Police Pepper Sprayed An Innocent Teacher Walking With His Mum

A Seattle high school teacher who was pepper-sprayed by police at a rally on Martin Luther King Jr. day has filed an intent to sue the city and its police force for $500,000.

Jesse Hagopian, a social justice advocate who teaches at Garfield High School, Seattle, filed a tort claim against the City of Seattle and the Seattle Police Department over the incident, which was captured on camera and went viral on YouTube this week.

You can watch the footage below.

Here’s that moment once again:

Hagopian had just finished delivering a speech at King County’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration about how black lives matter. He was on the phone with his mother when he was pepper-sprayed, his lawyer, James Bible, told the press.

“His eyes begin to burn, his nostrils began to burn, he felt pressure in his ear and he had difficulty breathing,” Bible said, adding that the teacher spent most of the afternoon washing his eyes out with milk. Forcing him to cancel his six-year old son’s party which was due that day. Hagopian’s son was understandably devastated.

“Thankfully someone caught it on video and now everyone can see what happened,” Hagopian wrote in a Facebook post after the incident.

In another post he added: “The milk has helped a lot and I’m beginning to feel better. Wish we had a better world.”

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said the incident was under investigation.

“Under the accountability system that we’ve set up, the uses of force that occurred during the MLK protests are currently under review and being investigated

,” he said in a statement published on his website.

The statement said that people should be able to protest peacefully and exercise their constitutional right to freedom of expression while police are “given the resources, support and training necessary” to “protect the public’s safety at these protests.”

Hagopian’s lawyer, however, doesn’t have much faith in the city’s ability to hold itself accountable.

“They’re not going to respond,” Bible said on Friday afternoon. “I would not be surprised if the city of Seattle finds yet another way to absolve itself of any wrong-doing. They’ve made a mockery of accountability and until that changes, we’re not holding our breath.”

The topic of police accountability is currently being hotly contested across the world. Should they be governed by the same rules as the rest of us? They’re supposed to be but when push comes to shove, it never seems to be the case. Just ask Michael Brown’s family. Or perhaps Trayvon Martin’s.