‘This long nightmare is over’: Man who hit, killed protester on I-5 in 2020 pleads guilty
The man charged in the 2020 death of protester Summer Taylor agreed to a plea deal on Thursday, pleading guilty to vehicular homicide, vehicular assault, and reckless driving.
The recommended sentence for 30-year-old Dawit Kelete will be roughly six and a half months in prison. He’ll also have 18 months of probation after he’s released.
In July of 2020, Kelete drove onto I-5 through Seattle where a group of Black Lives Matter demonstrators were gathered. He hit Summer Taylor and Diaz Love, killing the former and severely injuring the latter. Love suffered from a traumatic brain injury, multiple fractures, lacerations, and displacements.
In summer of 2022, Love filed a lawsuit alleging that the state and city had failed to block off access to I-5 to protect protesters.
Kelete later told officials that at the time, he was under the influence of opioids while struggling with “untreated addiction.”
Shortly after the plea deal was announced on Thursday, Taylor’s mother expressed relief on Facebook, stating that “aside from sentencing, this long nightmare is, at long last, OVER.”
According to the King County Prosecutor’s office, the standard sentence for this crime is between two and a half and three and a half years. A longer sentence was recommended in this case due to the “substantial injuries” suffered by Love.
