Seattle police will stop enforcing the city’s ordinance against property destruction after a federal judge issued a temporary injunction against the law.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman temporarily stopped enforcement of Seattle’s property destruction ordinance because she believes it may violate the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment.
The decision stems from a case, Tucson v. City of Seattle, in which four people were arrested for using chalk to deface a concrete barrier outside a police precinct building in January 2021. The individuals were accused of writing messages critical of police, like “Fuck SPD” and “BLM.”
Current Seattle law says that people are guilty of property destruction, a gross misdemeanor, if they “intentionally damage the property of another” or they write, paint, or draw “any inscription, figure, or mark of any type on any public or private building or other structure or any real or personal property owned by any other person.”
In her ruling, Pechman, a Bill Clinton appointee, said the ordinance is overly broad and unconstitutionally vague. She wrote:
The Court finds that the public interest is served by issuance of a preliminary injunction. The Court agrees with Defendants that the public benefits from preventing property damage and visual blight. But the criminalization of free speech significantly harms the public interest in far greater measure than the public might benefit from criminalizing property damage. The public interest here weighs strongly in favor of Plaintiffs’ requested injunction.
Pechman’s ruling is far-reaching. According to the Seattle Times, plaintiffs originally challenged the ordinance section that applied to graffiti. But Pechman enjoined the entire ordinance.
That means, according to the Seattle Police Department, that officers “cannot take action on damage to property under this law” until further order of the court.
“This is not a matter within SPD or City discretion; we are bound by the court order as it is written,” SPD said in a statement.
“We know, as evidenced by the thousands of calls for service we receive each year reporting acts of vandalism and other forms of property damage that property damage is, in fact, a crime that is of significance to community members,” the statement added.
Both parties, however, agreed the injunction should only apply to the ordinance section relating to graffiti. Now, it’s up to Pechman to narrow the scope of her order if she chooses.
* Article From: The Blaze
