Update at 4:35 p.m.:
People who took part in a Black Lives Matter protest Saturday at the Bellevue Square shopping mall had dispersed by about 4 p.m., Bellevue Police Department spokesman Seth Tyler said.
There were no arrests, Tyler said.
“The protesters entered the mall. They were asked to leave and they did so,” he said.
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“They continued to demonstrate lawfully on the sidewalk outside the mall for an additional 30 minutes, at which point they dispersed.”
Original post:
Roughly 40 people staged a “die-in,” sang songs and held hands inside the Bellevue Square shopping mall Saturday in what was billed as a “Black Lives Matter” protest.
The demonstration began at about 2 p.m. Police in riot gear were poised to make arrests shortly after 3 p.m.
The protesters were notified that they were trespassing and were asked to leave three times, said Seth Tyler, a Bellevue Police Department spokesman.
They left the mall after the third warning and began walking outside, Tyler said.
By 3:30 p.m. they had reached Bellevue Way Northeast and Northeast Eighth Street, he said.
As of that time, no arrests had been made, Tyler said.
A Facebook page about the event said, “Bring signs, link up with other protesters, and let’s disrupt a little comfort on the Eastside.”
“This will be a peaceful demonstration and we want to keep everyone safe,” the page also said.
The tagline Black Lives Matter has been used in recent demonstrations against police brutality and bias in the criminal justice system, particularly since a grand jury decided last month not to indict a police officer the high-profile fatal shooting of an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Mo.
The Facebook page listed as the host of the Bellevue Square protest a group called Outside Agitators 206. The same group was listed on a different Facebook page as the host of a Black Lives Matter demonstration outside a Seattle Seahawks game at CenturyLink Field last Sunday.