SPD Appeared To Use Banned Knee-on-Neck Restraint at Protest. Now Community And Elected Officials Want Accountability

Dozens of organizations, community members, and elected officials are calling on the City of Seattle and the Seattle Police Department (SPD) to hold cops accountable for restraining pro-Palestine protesters with what appears to be an illegal knee-on-neck technique. The coalition demanded immediate identification of every officer who used the knee-on-neck restraint at the protest, the suspension and investigation of those cops, a clear public statement acknowledging the violation and concrete disciplinary action among other things. 

As of Tuesday morning, the Mayor’s office and SPD have not responded to the community outcry. 

On April 19, a few dozen people gathered to protest outside of Town Hall Seattle, where Noa Cochva, a former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) combat medic who was crowned Miss Israel in 2021, delivered the keynote address at StandWithUs Northwest’s fundraising event. According to Through The Static, the protesters blocked the entrance, attendees tried to shove through, and the cops intervened, making three arrests after blasting someone with a chemical weapon and restraining someone by holding a knee on the back of their neck.  

The City of Seattle passed a law prohibiting SPD from using any neck or carotid restraint, including chokeholds in 2020 following the horrific murder of George Floyd. Former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin killed Floyd by kneeling on his neck for over nine minutes. The next year, the Washington State Legislature also passed a law explicitly banning chokeholds and neck restraints. 

The incident sparked community outrage, but no public reaction from the Mayor, SPD or any other City of Seattle official. So The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Washington and Washington For Peace and Justice organized a community letter demanding action. The letter has garnered signatures from elected officials including King County Council Member Teresa Mosqueda, Bothell City Council Member Rami Al-Kabra, Redmond City Council Jessica Forsythe, Seattle Port Commissioner Toshiko Hasegawa, WA State Sen. Yasmin Trudeau, and WA state Reps. Darya Farivar, Cindy Ryu, Chipalo Street, and Osman Salahuddin. 

In the letter, signatories said that the knee-on-neck restraint “is not crowd control,” but rather a “military-grade restraint technique” they claim was developed by the IDF to use against Palestinian civilians. 

“This unlawful technique was used here, against people protesting the conduct of that same military, and it is not lost on us,” the letter reads.

The letter argued the incident is but a symptom of a couple larger issues. For one, SPD continues to be a violent institution that “never meaningfully reckoned with why [the neck restraint] ban exists.” And secondly, the City does not actually give a proper fuck about Middle Eastern Seattleites or the violence the U.S. War Machine wages on their families abroad. 

“It is insulting and deeply harmful to our community that the city issues a proclamation celebrating Middle Eastern and North African Heritage Month and, in the same week, deploys officers to brutalize the very community it claims to honor,” the letter reads.

If the City of Seattle or SPD want to make good with the dozens of community organizations behind the letter, they could start with their six demands:

1. Immediate public disclosure of the names and badge numbers of every officer who used a knee-on-neck restraint at this event.

2. Suspension with investigation of all involved officers pending a full, independent review.

3. A clear, public statement acknowledging that this conduct violated SPD policy and community trust.

4. Concrete disciplinary action - not retraining, not a written reprimand, but consequences commensurate with the severity of harm inflicted.

5. A commitment to comprehensive, enforceable reform of use-of-force protocols with real community oversight.

6. A full audit and public disclosure of any SPD training programs involving IDF or Israeli security contractors, and immediate suspension of any such programs pending review.

   
   

The cops are unlikely to be very sympathetic toward the protesters and their allies’ calls for accountability. They infamously like to rough up lefties. But it will be interesting to see how Mayor Katie Wilson responds — if at all. 

Wilson didn’t get much of a honeymoon period with her progressive base, which has spent her first few months in office demanding she turn off the SPD’s surveillance system. Standing up to SPD for the illegal use of a neck restraint on a pro-Palestine protester would not fulfill her duty to uphold City and State law, it could help Wilson rebuild her relationship with the left.

But since Wilson seemingly backed off on her campaign-era anti-surveillance stance, it’s worth noting that Wilson said even less about Palestine or police brutality during the election. 

As The Burner previously reported, national outlets strained to manufacture an anti-Israel narrative to Wilson’s victory last November where none meaningfully existed. But, especially at the time, calling a progressive anti-Israel and drawing thin comparisons to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was an incredible strategy for Search Engine Optimization. This coverage hugely overstated Wilson’s lefty bonafides on Palestine or the degree to which Seattle voters discussed the candidates’ opinions  one way or the other.

Wilson spoke about Palestine publicly for the first time on an episode of the Bitchuation Room in early August. Wilson also tweeted that she is “strongly opposed to the genocide in Gaza” later that month. She conceded that the Mayor of Seattle’s ability to “end the violence is limited,” but she promised to “do everything I can to end the suffering of Palestinians and guarantee the safety of Muslims, Jews, and people of all faiths and backgrounds in Seattle.”

And when Wilson had the opportunity to take a firm stance against police brutality after SPD employed their aggressive crowd-control tactics against trans and queer protesters at the hate rally last Spring in Cal Anderson, her statement focused more on the wisdom to permit the rally in the gayborhood. 

Still, Wilson did call for an investigation into SPD’s actions at the Cal Anderson hate rally. In a post on her campaign’s Instagram, she wrote “We have so many years of experience with demonstrations in Seattle, there’s no excuse for this. We can do better.” 

Now that she has the power to make sure SPD does in fact “do better,” community members wait for the Mayor to respond to the latest incident of police brutality against protesters.