From yesterday's decision in Meinecke v. City of Seattle, written by Judge Jay Bybee, joined by Judges Margaret McKeown and Daniel Bress:
Appellant Matthew Meinecke's speech was not well received by his audience. On two separate occasions in June 2022—an abortion rally and an LGBTQ pride event—Meinecke sought to read Bible passages to attendees gathered in the city of Seattle. When those attendees began to abuse and physically assault Meinecke, Seattle police officers asked Meinecke to move and ultimately arrested him when he refused, rather than deal with the wrongdoers directly….
On June 24, 2022, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. In response, a significant number of people gathered on Second Avenue outside the federal building in Seattle to protest the decision. Meinecke arrived that afternoon dressed in a shirt and tie and went to a public walkway adjacent to Second Avenue. According to his complaint, Meinecke "did not come to this event to condemn abortion" or even to "speak on this topic, but to convey his faith in Christianity to people who were in the area." He held up a sign, read from the Bible, and handed out Christian literature.
Protestors surrounded Meinecke after about an hour. One protestor seized Meinecke's Bible. Meinecke retrieved another Bible from his bag and continued reading aloud. Another protestor grabbed hold of—and ripped pages from—the new Bible. The altercation soon escalated. As protestors, some of whom Seattle police characterized in their written reports as Antifa, encroached, Meinecke took hold of an orange-and-white traffic sawhorse. Five protestors, some clad in all black and wearing body armor, picked up Meinecke and the sawhorse, moved him across the street, and dropped him on the pavement. One law enforcement officer who observed this interaction reported that "'Antifa' members … began to fight/assault" Meinecke.
