Police clear ‘lawless’ protest zone
seattle
SEATTLE • Seattle authorities moved on Wednesday to dismantle a protest zone that the city’s police chief derided as “lawless and brutal” and which had prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to call for action against demonstrators.
Officers, clad in helmets and extra protective gear, entered the “autonomous zone” early and by mid-morning had arrested 31 people for failure to disperse, assault and other alleged crimes. One man was detained with a metal pipe and kitchen knife, according to the police department’s Twitter feed.
Police moved to retake the zone after Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan declared the gathering in and around the police department’s East Precinct and Cal Anderson Park an “unlawful assembly,” Police Chief Carmen Best said in a statement that highlighted a recent spate of shootings.
Harry “Rick” Hearns, a protester who said he volunteered to provide armed security in the zone for 24 days, said he supported the police crackdown “1,000 per cent.” He said he blamed the violence on outsiders who had marred an otherwise successful month-long occupation.
“The outsiders come in with guns, violence, rocks, sticks,” said Hearns, 59. “We don’t represent violence. People brought that to us.”
Police were walking in and out of the precinct on Wednesday, re-establishing control. Weeks earlier, they abandoned the building following clashes with protesters in the wake of the May 25 killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of that city’s police.
Floyd’s death triggered a nationwide wave of largely peaceful demonstrations against racial injustice and police brutality, giving rise in Seattle to the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) zone east of downtown.
“The CHOP has become lawless and brutal. Four shootings — two fatal — robberies, assaults, violence and countless property crimes have occurred in this several-block area,” Best said.
Trump has been demanding that local authorities eject the protesters, whom he labelled “domestic terrorists.” Conservative pundits have pointed to the zone in Seattle to support an argument that protests across the country were less peaceful than they were generally being portrayed.
The zone has become less crowded and active over the past several days. Crowds that came by the thousands to listen to speeches about police brutality and marvel at street art commemorating Black lives have disappeared, as have medic stations and multiple free food tents.