SEATTLE — A teen was arrested Saturday in Seattle for felony property damage during a protest, and police say the King County juvenile detention facility declined to book the suspect into custody.
Police say "approximately 200 individuals" participated in a demonstration on Saturday afternoon in downtown Seattle near the Space Needle.
The demonstrators were "disrupting traffic and violating municipal laws," and officers observed several tags of black spray paint graffiti on the concrete columns of the Seattle Monorail.
The female teen suspect was eventually located and arrested on suspicion of malicious mischief in the second degree, police say. Black spray paint was found and matching paint could be seen on her hands, according to police.
Police say they took the teen suspect to be booked into the Judge Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center, but the facility declined to take the teen into its custody.
The teen was then processed by police and released into the custody of her parents.
This isn't the first time police have called out a western Washington juvenile detention facility over not booking a teen into custody.
The police chief in Fife, located in Pierce County, called out the juvenile detention facility in Tacoma last month after it did not admit a teen who had allegedly assaulted his parents.
"As a result, officers are left to figure out for themselves what to do to try and protect the victims, the juvenile, and choose the option which provides the greatest mitigation for liability for themselves and the communities they serve," reads part of Chief Fisher's statement. "It is completely unacceptable that a system meant to protect, rehabilitate and hold juvenile offenders accountable has failed their community on numerous occasions and has pushed liability to our officers, our communities, and the citizens they are sworn to protect."
Back in April, the Tukwila Police Department said they are "being set up for failure" when it comes to handling cases involving juveniles. According to police, juvenile offenders are unable to be booked into juvenile detention unless they meet specific criteria involving serious violent crime.
"The last thing any officer or community wants is for an avoidable tragedy to occur," the police department said in its Facebook post. "However as we continue to see these situations play out, we continue to see more and more juveniles reoffending, becoming bolder and becoming more violent with every additional crime they commit. They are causing millions of dollars in damage to the cars they are stealing, businesses and properties they are burglarizing and more importantly, leaving victims of their crimes traumatized and in fear following these repeat incidents. There needs to be hard conversations as to why this is happening, what can be done to slow these occurrences down and long-term changes following these discussions to keep these things from happening in the first place."
