It wasn’t the assembly the Leschi Group Council thought it will be.
Council President Ashley Martin stood nervously on the entrance of the crowded room at Grace United Methodist Church, wringing a duplicate of the council’s publication, The Leschi Information, in her fingers.
“So to handle the elephant within the room…” Martin started, explaining that this was initially deliberate as a neighborhood Q&A with Seattle Police Division Chief Shon Barnes. “This was additionally posted as this can be a discussion board to debate the scenario, I’m not even going to attempt to describe the proper phrase for it, at Denny Blaine Park.”
Martin determined the primary half of the assembly would stick with the unique agenda and the second half could be dedicated to the “scenario.”
Simply who was right here to ask Barnes in regards to the “scenario” was visually apparent. The folks with the indicators and colourful hair needed to know: Why did three of his officers make a bunch of legally nude folks put their garments on at a queer nude seashore on Sunday and kicked out a trans girl who refused to dress?
However first, a short (roughly twenty-minute) introduction. After discussing his historical past as a trainer turned cop, his spouse, who’s a health care provider, and three children nonetheless again within the midwest, and his lonely dwelling life in Seattle with out them, Barnes took questions. He had simply began answering one in regards to the Earlier than the Badge coaching program when Chavisa Woods, who lives in Leschi and has gone to Denny Blaine along with her companion for 12 years, misplaced endurance.
“Half of us are right here to speak about Denny Blaine, and also you mentioned we’d get time for that,” Woods says.
“You instructed us about your school main earlier than you bought to Denny Blaine,” somebody says. “You mentioned we’d get to Denny Blaine first.”
“No no,” President Martin says, now seated at a desk on the entrance of the room. “I mentioned we had been going to get to the unique intent of the assembly first.”
“Respectfully,” Woods says over the babble. “They’re cracking down on queer our bodies and raiding queer areas,” Woods says.
After about twenty extra minutes of questions, Woods was known as on.
“We sat right here politely and listened to you speak about how nice the police are, however a whole lot of us have by no means had that have,” Woods says. “I wish to know why it’s okay for the police to come back to queer areas and begin cracking down on folks for public nudity, which isn’t even unlawful within the metropolis of Seattle.”
“Is nudity unlawful?” says a person on the again with lengthy gray hair. “That’s the primary query.”
“No,” folks groan and yell at him.
Barnes lastly pipes up. “So being nude is free expression, not unlawful,” he says. “Not unlawful. Let me clarify to you what occurred.”
Barnes defined that the officers had been receiving complaints about nudity and masturbation, which Barnes (hilariously) known as “exercise that will shock the conscience.” The officers had been instructed to patrol the park in quest of mentioned surprising acts, Barnes says, however “mistakenly they had been unsuitable” once they requested folks to place their garments on. Barnes was explaining that the trans girl was issued a code of conduct violation and instructed to not come again to the seashore for every week when that girl, standing at the back of the room, interrupted him.
“It was a enterprise card!” she says. “That’s what they gave me.”
“And to appropriate you,” says Colleen Kimseylove, co-leader of the park stewardship group Mates of Denny Blaine. “The officer trespassed the girl for being bare. Now we have photograph proof, she’s laying down, she’s doing nothing.”
“It’s my understanding that that will probably be rescinded, alright,” Barnes says.
“Am I allowed on the park or not?” says the girl within the again.
“Sure,” Barnes says. Individuals clapped. Later, somebody within the crowd requested him to ask for forgiveness.
“I did that.”
“I used to be detained!” the girl says. “That’s not a factor that you just apologized for.”
“That’s one thing you get sued for,” somebody quips.
“Nicely, we don’t touch upon pending lawsuits,” Barnes says. (It’s unclear if there’s a pending go well with, or if Barnes was saying he couldn’t touch upon the prospect of being sued. The Stranger reached out to SPD for clarification.)
On the finish of the assembly, Barnes apologized to anybody who “could have been offended” by his officers misinterpreting the legislation. “We’re not excellent,” he says.
Sunday’s “mistake” got here shortly after a neighbors group, Denny Blaine Park for All, sued town for allegedly permitting the seashore to show right into a den of cum and villainy the place public intercourse and masturbation had been supposedly commonplace. Masturbation absolutely occurs at Denny Blaine because it does at our metropolis’s many lovely parks, in addition to on our buses and road corners, however the greater than 50 beachgoers who’ve spoken to The Stranger about Denny Blaine within the final yr and half say the neighbors’ characterization is overblown. Masturbation is anathema at Denny Blaine, and beachgoers kick folks out once they see it. Kimseylove, who’s holding an intervention coaching on the seashore on Might 18, says they think neighbors are reporting masturbation in locations just like the car parking zone the place beachgoers aren’t even conscious it’s taking place.
However the go well with isn’t simply going after unlawful public masturbation, it alleges that authorized nudity violates the Parks Division’s code of conduct as a result of it’s depriving them enjoyment of the seashore.
The beachgoers simply see it as the most recent scheme to kick them out. Earlier than the go well with, an nameless donor (later unmasked by the millionaire proprietor of College Village and subsequent door neighbor to Denny Blaine Park Stuart Sloan, additionally a part of the group that filed the go well with) hatched a $1 million plan to construct a youngsters’s playground on the seashore.
Earlier than that plan went public within the fall 2023, Sloan vented his frustrations about nudity in textual content messages to Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell’s personal cellphone. He despatched the Mayor photographs of bare folks on the seashore, which he known as “DISGUSTING.” Harrell promised Sloan that deputy Mayor (now SDOT Director) Adiam Emery would assist him. Emery and Seattle Parks Division workers met with Sloan for months, even reviewing plans for the park. After a energetic and loud public assembly in December 2023, the place dozens mentioned the seashore was a spot of freedom and security, Parks cancelled the playground.
Public information present Harrell met with Sloan twice, together with the day after town introduced the plan was lifeless, however maintained he by no means knew the donor’s id. Within the first few months of 2024, beachgoers and neighbors tried to hash out an answer to finish the battle for good, however nothing actually got here of the talks.
These days although, town has paid Denny Blaine additional consideration. As The Stranger reported Monday, in March, Seattle Park Rangers instructed a nude sunbather to both dress or transfer nearer to the water the place he couldn’t be seen from the road. In April, police confirmed up no less than two instances as a part of the patrols Barnes talked about final evening. Blake Waddell, a seashore common there each instances, says one officer instructed him increased ups had been directing the patrols. A sergeant instructed Kimseylove the identical factor on the seashore Sunday. (In all these circumstances, no lewd habits was discovered). Waddell, who was additionally on the seashore Sunday, says he filed a grievance with a sergeant on the spot.
In an e-mail, Harrell’s workplace denied directing SPD to alter its method at Denny Blaine. The Seattle Parks Division says Park Rangers have routinely stopped by Denny Blaine since March 2024 and that there’s been no change to coverage.
In accordance with the lawsuit, neighbors met with Metropolis Councilmember Pleasure Hollingsworth 3 times final yr. Two months in the past, after Hollingsworth talked in regards to the conferences on the podcast Seattle Good, she instructed The Stranger neighbors had requested park rangers to look out for masturbation, however that there was no plan for that. Hollingsworth instructed The Stranger by textual content Monday evening that she had no touch upon the Sunday incident, however then posted to X that she and her employees had been monitoring the “scenario” and had been in lively communication with SPD, the Parks Division, and the Mayor’s Workplace about what occurred. Barnes says he’s working with Hollingsworth to arrange conferences between SPD and town’s queer neighborhood. Hollingsworth additionally just lately met with Mates of Denny Blaine.
“My ongoing hope—and precedence—is that we are able to collaboratively develop an answer that respects the park’s distinctive heritage whereas guaranteeing the security, dignity, and well-being of everybody who visits,” Hollingsworth wrote.
Ultimately evening’s assembly, Barnes mentioned the “directed patrols” at Denny Blaine would finish and that he’d herald Park Rangers to determine when it was applicable to name the cops. Although, when The Stranger requested Parks in regards to the rangers who instructed a person to placed on his garments, Parks mentioned police would take the lead on complaints of lewd habits from then on.
One girl on the assembly mentioned the cops hadn’t been of a lot assist to beachgoers to date. She mentioned beachgoers used to frequently name a few “predator” harassing girls on the seashore. When the cops got here, they’d allegedly inform the ladies the person was harassing to place their garments on. That man ultimately pushed somebody down the steps, almost killing them, she says. Barnes mentioned he needed to observe up on that.
A person with a coif of darkish hair named Michael requested Barnes if his officers would now know nudity was authorized within the park and would “by no means once more harass somebody for merely being within the buff.”
“I’ll guarantee that everybody understands that nudity is authorized,” Barnes says. “However I can’t, I couldn’t decide to saying by no means about something. I don’t know why they could be there. They could be there for one thing completely unrelated and it will get attributed to that.”
“That’s, that’s not the query,” somebody says.
“Nicely, then that’s the reply,” Barnes says. “Subsequent query.”
When a lady requested what she ought to do the subsequent time a police officer instructed her to dress at Denny Blaine, Barnes mentioned she might remind them nudity is “free expression” within the metropolis of Seattle, the precise factor beachgoers did Sunday.
“Can we are saying that you just instructed us it was okay?” she requested. If he answered, laughter and applause drowned it out.
“We’re dedicated to working with you,” Barnes says, after taking pictures down Kimseylove’s request for one more half hour of questions. “I don’t need anybody to stroll out of right here, primary, considering you may have a police division that doesn’t assist who you’re … Lastly, let me say this, this dialog just isn’t over.”
Kimseylove wasn’t thrilled with Barnes.
“I believe that was a present of nonsense,” Kimseylove says, pissed off that Barnes didn’t make extra time for questions and left open the ambiguous risk of future enforcement. “If there may be an incident, you’re the one with the information, the sources, the cash, the knowledge to determine a method to verify it doesn’t occur once more. The one variable we’re asking you to manage, Seattle Police Division, is your individual workers.”
That a lot he might have dedicated to, Kimseylove says. 4 others who spoke with The Stranger weren’t assured this was really over both.
