Sawant and protesters — briefly — occupy Seattle City Hall as Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone grows — UPDATE
Several hundred demonstrators, led by Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant, occupied City Hall downtown Tuesday night for just over an hour, calling for the resignation of Mayor Jenny Durkan and the defunding of the Seattle Police Department after a march from the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.
Protesters entered chanting “Whose City Hall? Our City Hall” before listening to a number of speakers at the “people’s mic,” as Sawant called it, on a range of issues, from the importance of Black LGBTQIA+ women in recent protests to taxing the council member’s familiar foe.
#BlackLivesMatter protesters in #seattle have taken city hall. Thousands are moving in. pic.twitter.com/1cTRNRZ5fv
— Alex Garland (@AGarlandPhoto) June 10, 2020
“It is about building the kind of political representation that brings the voice of the people into the halls of power and grabs power for ordinary people,” Sawant said. Starting Wednesday, “the City Council is going to be discussing budget issues, meaning two very important demands for us: Defund SPD and Tax Amazon.”
Many protesters also stayed behind to maintain a presence in the zone around 12th and Pine. Others spoke out saying the community, not politicians, should drive decisions around the camp growing outside the large police precinct emptied of equipment and boarded with plywood. So far, the boards have remained in place.
In her brief, the assistant chief raised allegations and reports about illegal activities at the camp but did not say the department was investigating specific examples or that there was evidence that it was happening.
“We have heard anecdotally of citizens and businesses being asked to pay a fee to operate within this area; this is crime of extortion,” Nolette said, referring to a comment posted to CHS by a purported area business owner. That commenter has not replied to our requests for more details about the allegation and the FBI told CHS Wednesday it had received no reports and no information about that kind of activity in the area.
“If anyone has been subjected to this, we need them to call 911,” Nolette said.
“We have been hearing from community members that they have been subjected to barricades set up by the protesters with some armed individuals running them as checkpoints in the neighborhood,” Nolette said. “While they have a constitutionally protected right to bear arms there is no legal right for those arms to be used to intimidate community members.”
While Nolette’s words will hopefully be reassuring to those concerned about a lack of police presence around Capitol Hill and the Central District, CHS reported on overnight East Precinct radio dispatches in which calls near the protest zone were sometimes declined by officers.
The assistant chief said the department is planning to hold daily briefings on the situation. Wednesday’s session took place downtown at SPD headquarters — far from the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.
https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/...y-hall-as-capitol-hill-autonomous-zone-grows/
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