The room at the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct also was decorated with a large “Trump 2020″ flag, in possible violation of state law and department policy regulating officers’ involvement in partisan politics while on duty.
The video also captures, on a shelf, a small gray mock tombstone, bearing a clenched black fist, the name Damarius Butts, his age and the date he was killed by officers: April 20, 2017. The department, in a statement, said that while it does “not know how that item ended up on storage shelving, we have no reason to believe it was placed as a ‘trophy’ or with any pejorative intent.”
Baker said it appears the tombstone was taken from a Black Lives Matter memorial for people killed by police.Braden Pence, an attorney at the Seattle firm of MacDonald Hoague & Bayless, sued the SPD over the graffiti arrests and obtained the video through the civil discovery process in U.S. District Court. While that portion of the footage isn’t relevant to his clients’ arrests, Pence said he released it “because the people of Seattle have the right to know their police department.
The department could not say when the tombstone or Trump flag were first displayed, but added the Trump flag was “removed long ago.” The video shows the room contains a couch, several chairs, a table, a TV, a refrigerator, and a washer and dryer — and was where officers Jamison Maehler, Nathan Biddle, Joseph Binder and a fourth unidentified officer were lounging when the graffiti call was broadcast.