Seattle Dad Takes $150K Deal After 7-Year-Old Son Is Pepper-Sprayed at BLM Protest

A Seattle dad has agreed to a $150,000 settlement after his 7-year-old son, identified in court papers as A.J., was doused with pepper spray during a downtown Black Lives Matter protest in late May 2020. Video of volunteers pouring milk and water on the boy's face near Westlake Center went viral after the encounter, and court documents say the child was treated at a hospital for chemical burns.

As reported by The Seattle Times, the father, Armand Avery, settled the federal civil-rights suit this week, and his attorney James Bible said the agreement "allows the family to move forward." The payment resolves the family's years-long legal claim over an incident that became one of the protests' most widely shared images.

What the city review found

A review by the civilian Office of Police Accountability concluded the sergeant's stream of pepper spray struck the child inadvertently and did not violate Seattle Police Department policy, according to a closed-case summary from the Seattle Office of Police Accountability. The OPA said body-camera footage shows a masked woman grab an officer's baton and duck as the sergeant sprayed, and the boy, standing behind her, was apparently not visible to the officer at the moment the spray was deployed.

How the lawsuit unfolded

Avery filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit in April 2022 alleging assault and negligence, with court filings identifying the child as A.J. and stating he required hospital treatment after the exposure. As reported by the Spokesman-Review, the suit argued the spray was part of a larger pattern of force used against largely peaceful protesters that month.

Broader fallout from 2020

The episode helped fuel a tidal wave of complaints about Seattle police, nearly 13,000 of them tied to that period, and became one of several incidents that later drew sharp federal scrutiny of the department's crowd-control tactics, according to The Seattle Times. Seattle City Attorney spokesperson Alan Pyke told the paper the city "is thankful to bring this matter to a close."

For Avery and his son, the settlement ends a long legal chapter that began on a downtown street and played out across oversight reviews and federal litigation. Civil-rights advocates say the payouts and rulings from the unrest continue to underscore calls for clearer rules around chemical agents and other crowd-control measures.