ABC Finally Gives Us The Scoop On Who Hit the Protesters in Seattle and It's Unreal

AP featured image — Seattle police block a street with their bikes in the Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone early Wednesday, July 1, 2020. Police in Seattle have torn down demonstrators’ tents in the city’s occupied protest zone after the mayor ordered it cleared. (AP Photo/Aron Ranen)

I’ve been waiting patiently for something that we seem to be missing, something rather important in the case of the protesters in Seattle being hit by a car while standing in the middle of the highway in the middle of the night.

Where’s the de rigeur picture of the arrested suspect?

Police arrested the man, Dawit Kelete. The media have described him as 27 years old, a Seattle resident who went to Washington State University. But despite the fact that he was taken into custody shortly after the incident on Saturday morning, we have yet to see a mugshot of him or a mainstream media picture released of him – not even from the local stations – as is commonly done.

Although an official picture has not been released, social media pics, including Instagram pictures of an individual with the same name, age, and attendance at Washington State University, are of a black man. But police and media have not verified that.

While he may have gone around a closure around a ramp to get onto the highway, it’s not clear at all that he knew the protesters were there or if he saw them until right before he hit them. It’s sort of the perfect storm of bad – people dressed in dark clothing standing in the middle of a highway late at night just around a bend in the road with their cars stretched out across the road, further obscuring the view of the protesters behind them.

Two white people, 24-year-old Summer Taylor and 32-year-old Diaz Love, were injured in the incident. Taylor later died at the hospital.

While police arrested Kelete and charged him with vehicular assault, that charge doesn’t necessarily indicate they believe there was intent. One can make that charge, for example, if it is believed he was driving recklessly.

Meanwhile, instead of releasing the picture of the suspect, here’s what ABC had to say about the incident.

A young protester has died from injuries she suffered when a luxury car plowed into her and another woman during a Black Lives Matter protest Saturday on a Seattle freeway that has been shut down for days due to the civil unrest, police said. https://t.co/4VN3VeDMcK

— ABC News (@ABC) July 5, 2020

Apparently a “luxury car” was to blame. What does the fact he was driving a Jaguar have to do with anything? Evil rich person did it? What the heck?

Was anyone driving the luxury car or no? https://t.co/sng7YPbwbR

— Nick Searcy, INTERNATIONAL FILM & TELEVISION STAR (@yesnicksearcy) July 5, 2020

Yes, the "luxury car" came out of nowhere on a highway and plowed itself into her. https://t.co/Fb09KEmpSP

— Krystle Baker (@TarheelKrystle) July 5, 2020