Suit over calling cops ‘murderers’ tossed

SEATTLE — A federal court in Washington granted summary judgment to Seattle councilwoman Kshama Sawant, who was sued for defamation by two police officers for calling them murderers over the shooting and killing of Andre Che Taylor. They showed her statements were per se defamation, but they are not actionable because they were made at rallies, “events that invited exaggeration, hyperbole and rhetoric critical of the police given the temporal proximity” of the shooting of Taylor and the then-recent shooting of Charleena Lyle. The statements also came after prosecutors decided not to charge the officers.