Editor’s note: This story was updated on Monday, June 16 with additional comments from Mayor Lisa Brown.
On their way to Pride, Justice Forral — an organizer with Spokane Community Against Racism (SCAR) — was arrested by Spokane Police Department officers on a warrant from the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office alleging third degree assault.
Forral was on their way to celebrate Spokane Pride when officers ran up to them. Folks nearby started taking video as Forral quickly turned around, put their hands behind their back and told bystanders to notify SCAR.
These were additional charges resulting from Forral’s presence at a protest against Immigration Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) detainment of two young men who came to the US legally, which we covered in depth here. At the protest, Forral was one of two people — both queer — who were arrested at Wednesday night’s protest with seven counts of “unlawful imprisonment”, a class C felony in the state of Washington.
It is still unclear why exactly Forral and Lang were specifically targeted for felony charges while other protesters were not, but court documents showed that ICE agents told police that agents, employees and the detainees in the building were “concerned for their safety and felt that they were being held hostage.”
Forral was released without having to pay bail for the initial seven felony charges on Thursday afternoon, with a scheduled court hearing later this month.
After the arrest on Saturday, organizers from SCAR went to the jail to talk to Forral and bail them out, but were told that no bail would be posted. Forral could be held for the entirety of the weekend, pending a potential decision from a weekend judge at 2 pm tomorrow, organizers told RANGE.
When shown the footage of Forral’s arrest, Council Member Paul Dillon said,“This feels like a political arrest.”
Dillon told RANGE Saturday that he was going to try and speak with Spokane Police Chief Kevin Hall or someone at SPD about the agency pausing future arrests of activists from Wednesday night’s ICE protest on charges brought by the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office.
This is especially pressing right now, as the only other person arrested on multiple felony charges along with Forral was Erin Lang, who is also queer and likely to be at Pride.
On Facebook, Guy Thompson, a former court watcher with SCAR, wrote “Spokane Police and Chief Hall absolutely can and do choose when to serve warrants. Arresting Justice on the way to Pride was an intentional provocation by SPD.”
Brown said she had no details on why the Spokane Police Department’s Tactical (TAC) team chose to execute the arrest at that time, and requests for comment from SPD haven’t yet been returned.
Brown did, however, paint a broad picture of conversations she’s having with Hall about rethinking the relationship between the City, SPD and the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office. “We are operating in a new environment for Spokane,” one she characterized as “clearly a departure from the 12 years past.” This environment, she said, is “one in which we have a new chief and a new mayor. And one in which we do not necessarily defer to the county sheriff to make the decisions about how to operate [during] an incident [like Wednesday night].
Brown reserved her biggest concerns, though, for “the threat of federal engagement” in volatile situations such as Wednesday night.
“My decision was in regard to what I felt was best for the overall safety of the community, as well as an awareness that if there was no response, it was extremely likely — and it became more likely as time went on — that federal agents would take charge of the operation,” she told RANGE.
We have requests for comment out to the Spokane Police Department about why Forral’s re-arrest happened during Pride and whether SPD will continue to use community events like this — including Juneteenth, which is this Thursday — to execute arrests of queer and BIPOC community organizers and activists.
We will update this story with any additional details as we get them.
