| Seattle Mardi Gras Riots |
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Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske ordered the police at the scene not to intervene, instead maintaining a perimeter around the violence, supposedly because he feared escalation. The Seattle police force later voted a resolution of "no confidence" in him. The City of Seattle acknowledged police strategy presented a public safety threat, and settled with Kime's family for just under $2,000,000. Several of the perpetrators admitted to racial motivation in their attacks and the Seattle Police recommended they be charged with hate crimes. However, none of the perpetrators were charged by the prosecutors with hate crimes, which if convicted, would have increased their jail sentences. Under interrogation, Khalid Adams stated that he "most likely" kicked a white man on the ground because of his race and that he believed a race war was in progress. {Link without Title} As reported by '' Stranger '' This was a race riot...the kind of race riot Seattle produced was different, scarier in two ways: (1) blacks exploded not in their own neighborhood, but in a white, commercial district; (2) their rage was directed not at the police, but at white civilians. Seattle created a task force to investigate the cause of the Mardi Gras riots. Initially task force meetings were closed to the public, but protest forced the city to open them. {Link without Title} Mayorial challenger Greg Nickels made Kime's death a political issue in his campaign, saying the certificate of his death would hang in his office should he become mayor. A picture of Kime hangs there today. By the time the disorder was over, one man (Kris Kime) was dead, and more than 70 others injured. On the day after the Mardi Gras riots ended, Seattle had a magnitude 6.8 Earthquake , the worst in 37 years. The scale of the Nisqually Earthquake caused people to refocus their attention on earthquake recovery and away from the violence of the riots. Outside the Seattle area, the Mardi Gras riots attracted little media attention and have largely been forgotten, as opposed to the WTO Meeting Of 1999 , riots, which are still widely remembered. |
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