Seattle protester hit by car on closed highway dies, second remains in serious condition, officials say

Stephen Sorace | Fox News ^ | 7/5/20 | Stephen Sorace | Fox News

[The_Media_never_lie]

A woman struck by a vehicle that drove onto a closed Seattle freeway early Saturday and plowed into a crowd of protesters has died, while a second woman remains in serious condition, officials said.

[Glad2bnuts]

For N I N E T E E N days that portion of the freeway has been shutdown and the State Troopers, who work directly for the Governor has enforced this.

I don’t know if it has been shutdown during daylight hours, but the reports say 19 straight days.

[The_Media_never_lie]

The State Patrol has shut down this portion of the Freeway for 19 days...NINETEEN DAYS.....

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Mayor/and or Governor have a lot of responsibility for this tragedy. That is, presuming the victims lives matter.

[ncalburt]

This was planned terrorist ambush on a federal highway on innocent citizens .
Where is the DOJ and FBI arresting Antifa leaders and their fellow
comrades .
What were plotting to do ? Maybe killing or robbing or injury innocent drivers ?
The Wash State police , local Dem cops , Dem mayor, and Dem Governor all helped set up this ambush on a federal property .
The Antifa lesbos were talking to the cops .
The Trump WH needs blast these traitors and demand arrest of all antifa Terror members .
This is something you see Mexican officials allow the cartels do on its highways.

[roadcat]

If you watched the video, he clearly was. He was driving the wrong way on an off-ramp and didn't slow down once he saw the protesters.

Wrong. I watched the video (a dozen times) and he is clearly driving on the correct side of the highway. He swerved around the blocking vehicles, then swerved left to avoid a bunch of people and the idiots in dark clothing in the middle of the road were hit. You know, even if he entered via an off-ramp (not verified), one could then do a 180 to flow with traffic direction.

[SteveH]

i informally measured the time between the warning (a protestor shouting “car! car!” to the other protestors as revealed by one of the victim’s livestreamed videos) and the impacts as roughly 7 seconds. in those seven seconds, the two victims can be seen on the bridge video as moving from the far right lane or emergency lane of the freeway to a faster lane. imho, situational awareness would dictate moving away from the center of the freeway lanes and towards if not past the emergency lane.

btw, the name of the driver gets no hits on google news, so apparently the scrubbers are busy on this event...

[prairiebreeze]

I think I read they’d been marching on this freeway for several nights and the highway at least had been shut down. Poor precedent to set by the authorities, poor judgment from the activists.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

And the gene pool is a little cleaner.

[Kozy]

Also file under Darwin Awards nominee 2020

[moovova]

[dp0622]

Yeah I guess. Either way I feel bad because this makes me happy. Now I have to beg God’s forgiveness.

[roadcat]

btw, the name of the driver gets no hits on google news, so apparently the scrubbers are busy on this event...

His name is Dawit. You can't make up this stuff.

[week 71]

Though protesting illegally on a highway is reckless and foolish, I will not celebrate the consequence of this behavior of being killed or likely handicapped for life. The driver was not some phantom of justice. A better consequence is heavily fined or arrested. Apparently those in charge did not permit that. Tragic situation all around.

[week 71]

Though protesting illegally on a highway is reckless and foolish, I will not celebrate the consequence of this behavior of being killed or likely handicapped for life. The driver was not some phantom of justice. A better consequence is heavily fined or arrested. Apparently those in charge did not permit that. Tragic situation all around.

[dragnet2]

The police had closed off the interstate to accommodate the so called protesters.

That infers it was perfectly safe to play on the freeway, when it clearly was not.

If that's the case, the cops, the city government and the state are fully liable for all damages.

[Secret Agent Man]

sure hope this means all the other protestors committing felonies are going to be charged with murder

[SteveH]

according to another poster on another thread, Dawit is Amharic (Ethiopian ethnicity) for David. BTW, Ethiopia is over 78% Christian (as of 2012):

https://www.britannica.com/place/Ethiopia/Religion

[The_Media_never_lie]

Though protesting illegally on a highway is reckless and foolish, I will not celebrate the consequence of this behavior of being killed or likely handicapped for life. The driver was not some phantom of justice. A better consequence is heavily fined or arrested. Apparently those in charge did not permit that. Tragic situation all around.

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No, I do not celibrate the death/serious injury to any person. I am appalled. My question is, where is the damn mayor and governor? Same question in many democrat cities. Do they just disappear, and escape any blame for the deaths and injuries due to the lawlessness? Civic authorities have the responsibility to stop lawless behavior. They should at least make the effort, and not disappear. The mayor and governor or Seattle/Washington are better at disappearing than Harry Houdini ever was.

[Alberta's Child]

I'll rarely ever fault a driver when pedestrians are run over on a limited-access highway where pedestrians are explicitly prohibited by law.

Obvious rules like not outdriving your line of sight go out the window when you have traffic blocked by civilian vehicles in a city that has been a riot zone for weeks.

Perhaps the motorist simply wanted to make sure that "Dawit Kelete" didn't become the Hindi or Somali translation for "Reginald Denny."

:-)

[rollo tomasi]

Free the driver, sue the city (Tax payers get nailed for voting idiots into positions of power but so be it) that unleashed this abominable stewardship.

[SteveH]

if the victim’s video is indicative of both victims’ attention, their attention was directed across the freeway, perpendicular to the direction of the oncoming automobile being driven in the normal direction of traffic flow for that part of the freeway.

In other words, the victims apparently had little situational awareness of the danger that was present or oncoming, or else were actively seeking to challenge the oncoming automobile driver by using their own bodies in an attempt to block the approaching automobile and driver.