Don’t need police, huh? The Seattle police say their calls for service have tripled in the occupied area — including 911 calls for rape, robbery, “and all sorts of violent acts that have been occurring in the area that we’re not able to get to.”
Protesters and the city are negotiating an end to the occupation, but the mob is still insisting that they won’t leave until their “demands” are met.
The Seattle Police Department has negotiated with Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters who have occupied a six-block radius for most of the week after driving police from the local precinct.
Demonstrators in the city, who had clashed with Seattle police repeatedly during protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, forced officers out of the East Precinct station at the beginning of the week, dubbing the area the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ).
During the week, organizers said that thousands of people were occupying the CHAZ, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Where there are thousands of people and no police, there’s bound to be trouble. After all, this ain’t Woodstock, where the hippies were too high to commit violent crimes.
So are police allowed to respond to emergencies or not?
A Durkan spokeswoman told the paper that Seattle police were responding to calls in the area on Friday and that some officers had returned to the precinct, though the Journal reported that no police presence was visible in the CHAZ on Friday.
“Some officers had returned to the precinct” means that they went out and weren’t allowed to respond to cries for help. Nice.
What we do know is that the place is being run more like a mafia family than a commune.
Seattle Police say they’ve received “reports of citizens and businesses being asked to pay a fee to operate within this area.” “This is the crime of extortion,” Assistant Chief Deanna Nollette added. “If anyone has been subjected to this, we need them to call 911.”
Except if you call 911, it’s not likely that anyone will respond. Isn’t a “police-free” zone fun?
Seattle Police Officers Guild President Mike Solan issued a warning for the rest of the country:
“Just imagine — if the city and the elected officials are willing to surrender a police facility, what’s next with these criminal agitators, these unreasonable activists that march on another precinct — in particular, the Seattle Police Department flagship precinct, the west precinct. That precinct houses 911 communications city-wide … If we lose the west precinct due to the lack of political will power by our elected leaders, imagine how do the reasonable citizens in Seattle expect to get police services when they call 911 for help?” he asked.
“This is going to spread and if we don’t get someone to step in to lead and make decisions here for the good of everybody — the reasonable majority of Seattle citizens that support public safety — we’re in dire trouble here.”
It’s hard to get a “list of demands” from the occupiers because quite literally, no one is in charge. Police and the city will be able to negotiate with one faction but will other groups accept the terms and leave?
Of course not. This is not about “demands” and as much as the mayor wants to grovel before the lawless mob, she’ll be unable to grovel to everyone. Someday soon, authorities are going to have to insist that the CHAZ be vacated. Then we’ll see whether the mayor gives in and grants the mob “independence” or whether she realizes Seattle is a laughingstock and tries to crack down.
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