On October 13th at about 12:20 AM, West Precinct patrol officers responded to a report of a large fight disturbance at a nightclub located in the 300 block of 2nd Avenue S. Upon arrival, officers observed a large, aggressive crowd of about 300 people in front of the club and in the parking lot across the street. The doormen and the armed private security officers from the venue were attempting to get the crowd to leave the area, and prevent reentry to the venue. Officers observed several short altercations between club security and the crowd, and club employees deployed pepper spray twice. In an attempt to prevent the situation from escalating, a West Precinct patrol sergeant called for all available King Sector units to respond to the area for officer presence.
The sergeant contacted the owner of the club and learned that he had been hosting an all ages event. During the event a large fight broke out inside. Though his staff ejected one group of combatants, it seemed to him that the fight was spreading to other patrons, so he made the decision to turn up the house lights and ask everyone to leave. The crowd did not respond well to this, and many people refused to leave the area without a refund of the $20.00 cover charge. When asked about this, the owner and the promoter were not able to come up with any means to placate the crowd. The promoter thought that the owner had acted hastily.
Five officers from King Sector and two officers from other squads remained at the scene for about thirty minutes. The sergeant made one announcement inside the venue on their PA system asking for calm and a couple of unamplified announcements with the security staff at the door area explaining the situation. The officers and then moved back and monitored the crowd as they thinned out. Eventually, they left the area. SPD officers did not deploy any pepper spray, and nor did they make any arrests. There were no complaints of injury or ill effects from the security officers’ use of pepper spray while officers were on scene.