Large crowds and some disturbances occurred during Mardi Gras leading up to the events of Fat Tuesday.

The violence led to a moratorium on large Mardi Gras celebrations in the city and tarnished the neighborhood's reputation.

On Saturday, the Seattle Police Department estimated a total between 4,000 and 6,000 people gathered in the area after midnight.

Windows were also smashed before the crowd was dispersed through the use of pepper spray, rubber bullets, and concussion grenades.

Police estimated large crowds began forming in the central plaza at 9:00 pm and eventually spilled into the surrounding streets.

With the assistance of an armored vehicle, police advanced on the crowd with tear gas, pepper spray, and flashbangs.

[13] An editorial in The Stranger claimed the incident was racially motivated in self-defense and that much of the violence was directed at white American assailants.

[3] Schell lost to Greg Nickels and Mark Sidran in the city's 2001 mayoral primary elections.

King County Executive Ron Sims called the Mardi Gras riot and the protests at the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting "defining issues"[10] in Schell's failed bid for reelection.

[19] On the day after the Mardi Gras riot, Seattle experienced the 6.8 Mw Nisqually earthquake, the worst in 37 years.

[21] Kerlikowske originally ordered the police at the scene not to intervene, instead maintaining a perimeter around the growing violence.

Mayor Paul Schell appointed a three-member task force panel to investigate the cause of the riot.

The Seattle Police Officers' Guild later voted no confidence in the chief, citing the Mardi Gras riot as one of the reasons.

[24] The Black male photographed and videotaped wearing brass knuckles and beating people took a plea deal to three years in prison for assaults on a woman and two men.

It ran concurrently with a nine-month sentence he received for rendering criminal assistance during a concert event three months later.

His conviction was later overturned by a State's Supreme Court decision finding that assailants could not be found guilty of murder if the intent of the assault was not to take a life.

He is serving a five-year prison sentence for domestic violence assault and harassment with an additional firearms charge stemming from a 2011 incident with a girlfriend.