Comments

1

At least their badge numbers are visible.

I hope the story of the so-called armed security comes out eventually - it would be very interesting. Having such a thing at a civil protest doomed the protest: resistance to the state must be entirely passive. This was the basic insight of Gandhi 100+ years ago. You dare the authorities to respond brutally and in this way leverage the liberal sentiments of the middle class. If you start waving guns around, that sympathy is lost and its just you against the state and good luck with that.

2

It's not a real crackdown until Sawant is arrested by the secret police.

3

I was in the CHOP just about a week ago for work. It was daytime, and it was peaceful, but it needed to go. It was a distraction to BLM and the goal of creating a new public safety paradigm for the city.

4

This CHOP was nothing compared to the forthcoming Eviction Riots.

7

@5 That's the part that really bugs me - both Durkan and Best claim it wasn't them. But its obvious the police of the East Precinct know how that happened. Are they just being coy? Invoking the 5th? wtf?

8

Fuck you @6. The Stranger is right in the middle of it. During "business hours" it was actually peaceful. What did you think they were going to say about it? Wait until the morning when the 3 AM shootings happened? Yes. The staff was asleep. The Stranger neither supported or condemned the "CHAZ/CHOP".

9

Sawant is more than a fool, she is dangerous in this environment. Good riddance (I'm expecting her to be expelled).... however everyone seems to have lost their mind, so probably I'll be wrong. Who can even stand the sound of her voice. Yikes

10

This will be the end of shootings and abysmal response times on Capitol Hill, I just know it!

And Rich, really? If theres one job in the world that doesnt need to be done in an office, it is writing stuff on the internet. Although I'm sure the staff wants to believe it, y'all arent essential workers.

11

Dear Stranger staff. Please stop spinning everything to fit some preferred leftist narrative through selective reporting. It is shameful you didn’t cover the escalating violence, chaos, and murder of teenagers by CHOP security with honesty and compassion. Thank god for Omari and others that filled the void. I used to love and respect the Stranger, but in recent years it has turned into Fox News of the left. It does a disservice to your readers that don’t live in CHOP and is destructive to Seattle. Yes CHAZ/CHOP was a beautiful thing for a couple of days, but it devolved into something tragic and destructive weeks ago. It needs to end. It will now largely be remembered for the tragic deaths of teenagers and destruction of Cal Anderson Park. The BLM movement will regain traction and broad support once this sideshow ends.

13

Our long municipal delirium, is over.

14

Cheers Carmen.
To you too, Jenny.

15

What the fuck are the cops doing in Cap hill? I saw a Native guy with a butter knife at Westlake. SWARM, SWARM, SWARM!!!

18

Out with a whimper. And... nothing changes, the corporate power structure continues unabated. There will be no reform. This will all blow up again. America is in STEEP decline.

23

That ended much better than I thought it would. It’s probably too late but using the area as a daytime protest, staging and gathering site would have been a good option. Hopefully the people that are protesting the killing of black people by the police and the oppressive justice system will/can continue in some form at scale.

@1 unless you’re in a revolution or coup and prepared to die for the cause having weaponry at a protest is indeed a sure fire way to get the opposite of what you want.

They need to catch the guy(s) that murdered those two kids in the Jeep.

Big +1 for Omari. Great stuff. Hopefully it will raise his profile and allow him to keep doing this same sort of coverage for other social and societal changes.

25

What did Omari do?

26

I stepped out for more popcorn. Which scene in Les Misérables is this?

27

Could've brought in the CATs and went Rachel Corrie style on 'em.

28

It seems awfully naive to assume this means the protesters are done protesting now, or that their protests will no longer focus on the East Precinct. Or that the SPD won't act like goons again in response.

It should be an interesting evening, one way or another.

29

Oh fuck off, Rich. Blogging is not essential, and bonus, you can do it from home!

31

"Black Lives Matter, except to Black people." That comes from the mouths of people who marched with me for equality in our twenties. They bring up that Harvard will take a C Black student; NEVER for Asian or Whites. CHOP murders, Chicago murders, ... are mostly Black on Black crimes. My company, like many companies, have specific hiring goals for Blacks, Hispanics. ...

Trump is severely weakened. But, more Antifa, "defund the police", BLM protests, ... only helps Trump, because it turns off people in the middle. If you or your buddies feel the urge to protest, I suggest lighting up some good joints to pass time until after the election.

It seems people like Sawant, Bernie, Bernie Bros, Antifa are all just fucking agents trying to push Biden to extreme left, making Trump more electable.

32

I just have one question for Mayor Jenny Durkan and Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best: If SPD's mission is to protect and serve the people of Seattle, and black lives as well as everyone else's matter, then why are AR-15 assault rifles, rubber bullets, and tear gas deemed "necessary" during peaceful protests against flagrant racism and misogyny?

36

The shootings brought down the CHOP. And those shootings were, it appears, largely perpetrated and instigated by young Black gang members, or other people of color with a toxic mix of deadly weapons and personal grievances. They found their targets concentrated in that area, when ordinarily they'd be spread across a number of south/central neighborhoods. The same shootings that happen in the city all the time were happening more often in one spot.

If that diagnosis is correct (and I do believe at least one shooting was perpetrated by Proud Boys, but I don't think they can be held responsible for the overall violence), there are multiple ironies at work. First, that the entire enterprise was set up as a means to support the idea that Black lives matter, a concept which, for the young Black men involved, apparently had no immediate resonance. Second, that the CHOP had long ago, despite its well-intentioned origins, become a distraction for the BLM movement, which makes its dissolution almost a welcome event for the very people it was intended to uplift. Third, that the demands of the occupying citizenry there to defund/dissolve key parts of the police infrastructure, intended to help serve the Black community suffering under the boot of cops everywhere, were compromised by the actions of angry young men who are part of that community, as well as the obvious inability of the CHOP to provide the public safety necessary to prove the anti-cop philosophy behind their demands. And fourth, that the violence that happened there will now be attributed to the nature and existence of the CHOP, instead of as another expression of the systemic racism that drives this kind of violence in the first place and that will continue unabated no matter how quickly and thoroughly the area is brought back to "normal."

37

Good riddance. Maybe next time don't murder, rape and rob people.

38

Finally! It's about time they dismantled the CHUBZ, or Capitol Hill Urban Blight Zone. Better late than never, I suppose.

39

Welcome to Occupied Seattle. You all now have to show ID in your own city.

By the way, it was an FBI action, the Mayor was told to do it.

I'm now recommending we reduce the SPD budget by 80%.

40

Your revolution is over, Mr. Lebowski. Condolences. The bums lost.

43

I'm now recommending we increase the SPD budget by at least 25% through reductions in other departments like Council staff and so forth.

46

31

You've uncovered Antifa's secret plan to radicalize Joe Biden. I'll contact Antifa HQ to let them know we have a leak....

I will suggest to Antifa Supreme Leader you and your racist friends' insightful plan to affect systemic change by rolling over and doing nothing. We wouldn't want to upset any precious Trump supporters.

49

The squealing from the Authoritarian Brigade in here is going to be just hysterical when the protests resume.

50

Omari Salisbury? I thought they were talking about Omari Garrett.

Yes, I am out of the loop. I’m a very old person.

53

@46. Last time, Bernie ran, he got ~20% support. This time, he got ~20%. His brand of socialism/communism isn't gonna fly in this country.

Count the number of protesters, divide by the number of population. Yeah, that's how "popular" your protests are.

Stay home! Grown ups (in age and in mental capacity) are trying to win an election.

58

@40 doesn’t get the irony of the Lebowski reference. The Dude won (or El Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing). It was The Big Lebowski that lost.

Also, Kurtz was a Colonel. Bill Kilgore was a Lt. Col.

60

The Police State is more patient than you are.
The Virus is also more patient than you are.
Which means, that if you are in Hong King, or in the United Ststes, you are screwed!

64

The moment Chaz turned into Chop was the beginning of the end. Inevitable.

66

Yes, the screamers scream about the homeless, about the activists about the people that tried to heal the harm that the corporatists, the super rich, police staters created. So being the cowards you are you scream at the people fighting back but you do nothing about the rulers who kill day by day. They kill at chaz/chop or any where they can and they always want scapegoats in the poorest people but never want to fight the status quo that is causing the misery. You are abusive control freaks that are crypto fascists to the core.

The city with their racist police and rightwing supporters did everything to kill the chaz/chop areas. Day in and day out. The city has done little or nothing to aid the poorest people in this city but blame them for the neglect and abuse that they themselves have done with their hoarded wealth and stolen tax monies.

These movements are far from finished. Better hide your cowardly selves because there will be so much more to come.

67

Which side are you on? An old labor movement slogan that still rings true.

68

63 So fascism is a good thing? That won’t work because most people are against it. Whether you like it or not.

69

60 Since we vastly outnumber the Trumpers for example, Pat Dear, we are far from doomed.

70

@55: "The council and the city have pretty much taken up most her positions if they realize it or not anyway."

The Showbox, it is saved! (Seen any good bands there lately?)

"Sawant will lose her next re-election bid!"

Let's hope. Then we can get actual progressive legislation passed, unlike her last term and this term (so far).

As long as she's on our Council, any progressive legislation will receive the treatment all of it got last term: first, she'll try to co-opt it for her own agenda, and when the sponsors refuse, it will be subjected to her ever-escalating purity tests until she declares it failed; then she'll publicly smear the sponsors as "corporate council members" and "sellouts." Meanwhile, our most vulnerable citizens can keep right on suffering from whatever conditions the legislation would have addressed.

72

"Yes, the screamers scream about the homeless, about the activists about the people that tried to heal the harm that the corporatists, the super rich, police staters created.

So being the cowards you are you scream at the people fighting back but you do nothing about the rulers who kill day by day.

They kill at chaz/chop or any where they can and they always want scapegoats in the poorest people but never want to fight the status quo that is causing the misery.

You are abusive control freaks that are crypto fascists to the core."

Dude.
Thank you.

73

We all know most City of Seattle employees and politicians are incompetent, and that the SPD started CHOP itself by unnecessarily using potentially deadly and definitely maiming force against peaceful protesters. But there is not an iota of information as to the suspects and reasons for the two deaths (presumably gang shootings)? I've lost all respect for Durkan and Best.


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