Unarmed Black Bystander Maced by Mall Security at Protest in Seattle

[Agschmid]

An unarmed black bystander was maced near a pro-Palestine protest at Seattle's Westlake Mall this past Saturday after a strange confrontation with a belligerent, shirtless white man.

The bystander, 25-year-old Raymond Wilford, encountered the shirtless man outside the mall. According to witnesses, the latter individual was already on the scene and had been using racial slurs while confronting pro-Palestinian protestors. In images captured by photographer Alex Garland, the shirtless man can be seen moving toward and then squaring off with Wilford. (No punches were thrown by either of them, and a report by the Seattle Police Department says the shirtless man instigated the confrontation.) That's when a mall guard stepped in, looked past the shirtless individual, maced Wilford, and took him into custody.

From Seattle's The Stranger:

What did Wilford do to deserve being pepper-sprayed in the face? The mall's security director says the incident is under investigation and the company has no comment. Nor would he tell me the guard's name.
According to a Seattle police report, the mall cop told officers that when Wilford "took an aggressive step towards him he deployed his pepper spray."
But according to Wilford and two witnesses I spoke to (Garland and a community college student demonstrator named Isra Ayesh), that's not what happened.

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Read more here.

[marmar]

1. ...............

That has really pissed me off tonight. ...... And they weren't even trying to listen to the other protestors telling them otherwise. ..... American Stasi.

[Agschmid]

2. Yup.

It was an incredibly frustrating video to watch, especially when you realize this was a "mall cop"... And then to not allow the other folks in due to "private property" the whole system is a wreck. Racism seems ingrained in our society it needs to end.

[randys1]

3. yep, anything that happens now is deserved...if you arent angry then dont talk to me

[Agschmid]

5. If you aren't angry you aren't paying attention, remember eventually they will be coming for you.

[randys1]

12. I have been yelling at everyone, hell i was at a casino today, sitting next to AA and told

him he wasnt alone, I have his back, he didnt know anything about MO

PAY ATTENTION YOU PEOPLE!!!!

[merrily]

4. An "aggressive step toward him?"

How the hell is an aggressive step different from any other kind of step?

Hard to believe any bystander took a step toward the mess without any kind of provocation anyway.

Doesn't a cop even have to allege that he was in danger before HE gets physical?

[Agschmid]

9. This...

Is apparently an aggressive step. SMH.

[merrily]

13. "A picture is worth a thousand words."

[Agschmid]

14. Notice the crazed shirtless white dude behind him...

But yet the pepper spray was shot at the younger African American male. Makes total sense right?

[merrily]

16. I also notice the professional-looking camera pointed at the sidewalk.

The guy across from the guy being maced looks like a professional photographer covering the demonstration, though for all I know, he is a birdwatcher. In any event, he seems to be interested in watching the incident but not in photographing it.

Do you mean the shirtless guy we can see in reflection in the glass? Nice catch.

[Ms. Toad]

24. There's a whole series of even clearer pictures of the shirtless guy's antics.

Follow my link from post 6: http://thedignityvirus.com/#jp-carousel-405 (In some of them he is wearing a navy blue shirt, which he took off partway through the series.)

[pscot]

31. Great series of photos

You can see the blue shirt in the hand with the bag.

[merrily]

42. Couldn't be clearer. Thanks.

[dawn frenzy adams]

44. Wow!

Thank you for posting that link.

[Uncle Joe]

45. Apparently this man had Ninja Training, the mall cop couldn't see him because of his stealth skills,

?w=370&h=

so that's understandable.


But if you focus closely on the pic, you can see a shirtless man, probably off his meds, in front of Starbucks, acting like an idiot, causing trouble and possibly presenting a danger to the public.

[Ms. Toad]

48. Yeah, that must be it. n/t

[Unknown Beatle]

23. A fucking mall cop!

He probably waited for months to use his mall issued pepper spray. Any excuse to spray someone, preferably an African-American. He probably couldn't cut it in the police academy so he became a mall cop...a fucking mall cop, for crying out loud. Asshole!

Right now, in America, it's dangerous to be a black or brown minority.

[Ms. Toad]

6. Here are the photos mentioned above.

http://thedignityvirus.com/#jp-carousel-405

This is the charmer who can be seen in more than a dozen photos (both with and without a shirt) acting beligerantly toward several individual - who should have been the individual targeted by the mall guard:

[Agschmid]

7. Thanks for posting these, I didn't see them in the slate article.

Looks real classy...

[Ms. Toad]

8. There's a link to them - but it isn't very obvious.

(A friend of mine had posted them to FB earlier, so I knew to look for it.)

[Agschmid]

10. It's weird they removed the photo they had posted earlier, not sure the cause?

[Ms. Toad]

11. I saw that comment as well,

And wondered what it was about. I only saw the photos I linked to earlier - so I don't know whether it was one of the ones in the series (in which case there might be copyright issues).

[merrily]

15. As Jon Stewart says after showing a video of an asshat, "He seems nice."

[4b5f940728b232b034e4]

18. He wasn't nice

Sometimes Stewart just misses the point.

[Agschmid]

20. I think the intent is sarcasm.

[pscot]

32. Someone definitely misses the point

[chervilant]

49. OMG! Really?!?

You might want to review the definition of "SARCASM," or admit you're here merely to rabble-rouse.

[rhett o rick]

17. k&r. Thanks for posting. nm

[Agschmid]

19. No problem.

Ferguson is getting most of the attention and rightfully so, but we can't forget this happens EVERYWHERE.

[rhett o rick]

21. I have a feeling that we are sitting on a power keg ready to blow. nm

[freeplessinseattle]

22. Westlake security escorted me down the escalator, to front doors when I was on my way to a protes

I thought I was being smart parking in a semi secret good spot near the Space Needle, then taking the Monorail down to Westlake Center, where it ends. You disembark inside the center, & I was so naive I didn't think it'd be a big deal to just hold my sign lowered and upside down while I just made my way outside.

Silly me, almost as soon as I entered the mall a security guard appeared and told me I couldn't be in the mall with a sign, because in the past some hooligans smacked a security guard with a sign on a stick, so no sticks allowed anymore.

She wanted me to get back on the Monorail, & I explained to her that I just was trying to get to a protest efficiently, and my only intention was to get outside as quickly and in self consciously as possible. So the solution was for her to accompany me all through the mall, right on my heels, not a self conscious feeling at all.

The cool thing is though that when she got one step behind me on the escalator, other people started chiding her for treating me like that (maybe only because I'm a petite harmless looking girl, but still) and some said loudly "leave her alone!"

For the most part Seattle people rock, but there is something off kilter with our law enforcement types!

[Agschmid]

25. Wow.

Well mall cops usually are (in my experience) on a power trip. This was just an egregious abuse of power.

[blackspade]

26. This there a reason why they couldn't have let him rinse his eyes?

What a bunch of assholes.

[1StrongBlackMan]

27. The biggest problem, and common thread, with all this "incidents ...

is that Law Enforcement, whether police or private security, rather than seeking to de-escalate situations, they become "invested" in their course of action and refuse to re-consider, even in the face of evidence that their have chosen the wrong course.

And I won't even go into how Law Enforcement (and private security) almost always start from a place where "the Black guy is wrong", and how that leads to the problem I've observed, above.

[joeybee12]

28. Mall Security--Gun Nuts who want to be police but can't pass the psychological test...knr

[Agschmid]

29. In general... Yup.

[joeybee12]

30. And considering who actually becomes cops...

The bar on that psych test must be pretty darn low.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

35. Things have gone WAY downhill since the days when they were Union.

[joeybee12]

36. It's now an entry level position, low pay, no benefits...

You get what you pay for.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

37. Yeah,...thugs from the High School Wrestling Team.

[frylock]

39. word up

[JEB]

33. Would it be interfering to kick him in the crotch?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

34. That is assault and battery by the cops. Case closed (As Archie Bunker liked to say.)

[frylock]

38. leather gloves and a smokey bear hat on a mall cop?

a fucking mall cop?!! how much longer before mall cop is rolling in an MRAP?

[Agschmid]

43. They all wear those stupid hats, even here in Mass.

[reflection]

40. I'm so sick of this shit.

It's hopeless. That poor guy. My heart just aches for him.

[secondvariety]

41. Wow.

Mr. Wilford has a lot more patience than I have. Many years ago, I was grabbed by some store dick who thought I was stealing. I didn't know who or what he was so I dropped him like a bad habit. Needless to say, I was arrested by a real cop...spent the night in jail, went in front of a judge who not only threw the case out but also gave that store dick and a Sears rep an earful about grabbing innocent people.


Knowing how things are today, chances are that Mr. Wilford would have been killed if he had done what I did.

[icymist]

46. This is sickening to watch.

And that female mall cop yelling "private property, please leave" at the entrance of a public mall.

[bigdarryl]

47. As a retired Correction Officer and current part time security gaurd my question in this whole

Incident is WHAT THE HELL!!! are mall security guards doing arresting private citizens and carrying mace.Most security guards don't have police powers to arrest people let alone carry mace.Maybe it's some kind of special training this particular Mall Security outfit has but I have never heard of a regular security guard making arrest.And Ive been doing Law Enforcement and regular security on the side for 30 plus years. In fact as a correction officer working around hundreds of inmates in a housing unit where they are housed we couldn't carry mace

[Doctor Loveless]

50. Right!

He was guilty of standing while black.

[4139]

51. Why are they protesting at a Mall?? Just curious

[Agschmid]

53. They were outside on the streets but the mall cop is who responded.

They were not actually protesting in the mall.

[HooptieWagon]

52. Wow.

I sure hope the bystander hires a good lawyer, he has a good case to win several civil lawsuits against the mall, the mall cop, the security company, and the belligerent asshole.

[exboyfil]

54. Interesting story about a Raymond Wilford

who is also 25 years old and lives in Seattle.

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Charge-Teen-shot-Seattle-clerk-over-17-worth-of-5075447.php

I don't know if he is the same person, and this incident has nothing to do with that prior incident. Just giving a heads up as the story develops.

The Wilford in the story is accused of participating in a robbery and shooting over beer.