It was also her birthday. And because Ann Davison is gone, it's kind of your birthday. by Micah Yip Every seat was taken at City Attorney Erika Evans’ swearing-in ceremony at City Hall Monday afternoon, and dozens stood at the bac k and sides of the room. Microphone in hand, Evans commanded the front of the room as her family and elected officials, including Mayor Katie Wilson and several city councilmembers, looked on. Coincidentally, it was also her birthday. “I am committed to a Seattle where we can all feel safe and where we all thrive,” Evans said. “A city where dignity is non-negotiable. A city where we always fight back with urgency and with courage to protect our rights and values here in Seattle.” Evans, Seattle’s first Black city attorney, said she’s in the process of creating a “new, reimagined” community court to connect people with services after their release so they don’t reoffend, fulfilling a campaign promise. Seattle had community court until former City Attorney Ann Davison shut it down in 2023.  Evans also said she’d be “laser-focused” on domestic violence and DUI cases—ones that her predecessor, Davison, was badly behind on. And Evans plans to put a dedicated prosecutor on bias crimes “to make clear that hate and discrimination will have no place here in our city.” Before Evans took the oath of office, several people close to Evans spoke to her character and work ethic, including retired Washington Supreme Court Justice Mary I. Yu, campaign intern and University of Washington student Towa Nakano-Harris, U.S. District Court Judge Richard A. Jones, and Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown, who’d known her for a decade and endorsed her candidacy.  “I knew she had the skill set and the character to do something bold and visionary that would have an impact on more people,” Brown said. Evans spoke of her grandfather, Lee Evans, a double-gold medal-winning Olympic sprinter and prominent leader in the Black power movement who famously raised his fist on the podium at the 1968 Summer Olympics. “It is that same legacy that I carry forward, and why I am standing here today,” Evans said. And under the Trump administration, “when we were seeing clear rollbacks in civil rights, I knew I needed to make a decision just like my grandfather did to stand up and fight back what was happening. That is the vision I’m bringing towards this office.” ...read more read less