Pioneer Square/Thurs March 11/ 8:34 pm Officer Aaron Lee Parker reports: "I was working as a uniformed two-officer patrol unit with my partner, Officer F. Lednickr. At approximately 2034 hours, SPD received several telephone reports that there was an assault going on near the intersection of Third and Yesler, in which several people were attacking one man.

"The victim said that he had been at the Seattle Sounders soccer game and that he is a Portland Timbers fan. He was wearing his Timbers scarf and got into what he thought was friendly rivalry banter with several Sounders fans near the intersection of Second and Main. He walked away, headed toward Third and Yesler, where he was going to catch a bus to his hotel. He then noticed that the three males whom he had been speaking with were now following him. When he got to the south sidewalk in the 200 block of Yesler Way, he saw the men running up behind him in a reflection in a window.

"According to the victim, the men were wearing their Sounders scarves over their faces as they approached him. He felt one of the men grab on to his scarf and pull it backward. The victim grabbed his scarf so it would not get taken away and fell to the ground. Once on the ground, he was punched in the head several times by all three men. One of the men said, 'Give me the scarf.' Two of the men ended up pulling on both ends of the scarf, causing it to constrict around his neck. The victim never lost consciousness; he said he was able to hold on to the front of the scarf in order to keep his airway unobstructed.

"The victim said he was dragged around the sidewalk by the scarf. However, he was able to retain it, and nothing was stolen from him.

"A witness saw the attack, and he intervened to try to stop it. The men eventually ran southbound through the alley. An area check was made for the suspects, but they were not located. There were many men in the area matching the vague descriptions of the suspects (as many Sounder fans were wearing matching scarves), so locating these actual suspects was difficult."

As we can see from this report, hooliganism is in the DNA of soccer. Even here in Seattle—this liberal and generally peaceful city—our soccer fans (mostly white, mostly middle-class, mostly educated) cannot resist hooliganism any more than soccer fans in other countries. We can now expect retaliation from Portland Timbers fans, who are also mostly white, mostly middle-class, and mostly educated. recommended