From MYNORTHWEST.COM
Isaiah Willoughby, a man who was charged with arson after setting fire to a police precinct during the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP), is officially running for the 2nd District seat on Seattle’s city council.
“I am committed to educating the youth to lead and to serve the community, enlightening the minds, developing the region, touching the heart, and aspiring the soul,” Willoughby said on The Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “The name of my campaign is multiculturalism democracy because, in our legislative branch, there’s no representation of my ethnic diversity.”
Willoughby pleaded guilty to pouring gasoline on debris next to the precinct and lighting it on fire on June 12, 2020, damaging the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) East precinct.
Cherry trees in front of Pike Place Market are gone
He was sentenced to two years in prison on Oct. 5, 2021, according to The Post Millennial, but was released March 2022.
“Why would we want to give someone power by putting them on the council if they’re an arsonist?” Jason Rantz asked Willoughby on his show.
“Once I found out that police brutality was going through multiple miscarriages from Tacoma and Seattle, then I committed a crime in the upheap of the moment,” Willoughby responded. “But my crime does not define who I will be in the future, or my narrative, or the legislative policies I can implement in Seattle for the greater good of my people.”
Willoughby claimed the loss of Manny Ellis — the 33-year-old Black man who died while being restrained by Tacoma police on March 3, 2020 — set off his actions at CHOP.
“I was the last person to see Manny Ellis leave the house before he walked into the store that night. I was not involved in any protests at all during 2020 until June, when I was watching the news, and I saw Manny Ellis’s untimely death on the news,” Willoughby said. “And I happened to live in the same house. He was right next to me, his room. So when that happened, I joined the protests when I saw how he was murdered by police brutality.”… (Read more)
