In the early hours of July 1, Mayor Jenny Durkan issued an executive order directing the Seattle Police Department (SPD) to clear the area known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP). The SPD arrived around 5 a.m. with an armored vehicle and more than 100 police officers to “liberate” the area from a few sleepy protesters and countless Seattle residents who are unhoused.
The vast majority of CHOP protesters had already redirected their organizing to other areas of the city over the past week. The majority of the persons who remained in CHOP are unhoused and housing insecure people who came to CHOP as a refuge from police sweeps — inhumane sweeps that have long been the subject of public opposition. At CHOP, people facing homelessness were provided with tents in which to isolate during the pandemic, meals, masks, COVID-19 testing, and other resources. What most media missed on July 1 is that SPD conducted another violent encampment sweep, tearing apart and throwing away donated tents and belongings.
Police employed violent means of dispersal and arrested over 40 people. It’s unclear how many were protesters and how many were people seeking shelter. The SPD applied the dispersal order to journalists and citizen observers, in violation of Seattle Municipal Code 12A.12.020. They prevented journalist Omari Salisbury from filming outside of his Converge Media office located next to the East Precinct. Then the SPD denied the action on Twitter despite it being live streamed as it unfolded. They demanded ID from residents, and continue to do so, after spreading the lie weeks ago that CHOP protesters had done the same. And they continued to cover their badges with so-called “mourning bands.”
Observers who filmed the sweep even captured video of police kneeling on a protester’s neck. It was the death of George Floyd by similar excessive restraint that brought protesters to the streets of Capitol Hill in the first place. By nightfall, things had returned to where they began: with protesters standing off against a line of police officers on Capitol Hill. The SPD used batons to beat a Black woman organizer with Black Collective Voice, then arrested the white ally who tried to shield her with his body.
SPD’s actions on July 1 made it clear they have no intention to change their behavior through reforming or reimagining. We must defund and reinvest.
At the beginning of June, SPD repeatedly tear gassed peaceful protesters and residents of Capitol Hill who live near the East Precinct. Initially protesters were just attempting to march down the street. SPD barricaded protesters out of the area around the precinct, allegedly based on a weak and generic report that precincts in major cities may be in danger.
SPD’s actions created and incited a conflict that brought hundreds more protesters to the area that became CHOP. Then they abandoned the East Precinct. To this day, not even the chief of the disorganized department can say who gave the order.
According to organizers on the ground that night, the first protesters who camped outside the precinct did so to protect the building. They didn’t want protesters to be blamed for any damage to the precinct. They also wanted to prevent a building fire since the area around the precinct is densely populated with residences and businesses.
In many ways, SPD’s reckless behavior led to the creation of CHOP. Once SPD was gone, protesters moved into the area around the precinct and created a peaceful, cooperative environment for demonstration, learning, and sharing resources. Many Capitol Hill residents said they felt safer once the police were gone.
CHOP grew and attracted people from all walks of life: tourists, families, organizers, the unhoused, housing insecure, and many with unmet mental health and substance abuse needs. Additionally, it attracted right wing extremists and other bad actors. Then, shootings erupted in the area adjacent to CHOP and have continued for the past week, endangering both protesters and long-term residents. Despite the ongoing gun violence issues in Seattle, with many young people under 25 being shot or killed each year, the mayor has never given those lives the time and attention she gave them when the crime migrated to the wealthy, white Capitol Hill neighborhood. Even then, she seemed to only care insomuch as she could use these young people’s lives in a PR campaign against CHOP.
The story of CHOP is in part a story of the failures of the SPD and the City of Seattle. The protest inherited the crime on Capitol Hill; it inherited the City’s failures to provide services for homelessness, drug addiction, and mental health; and it inherited the ongoing inability of America’s policing and incarceration systems to prevent violent crimes or address the inequalities that may predicate them.
Even after SPD “takes back” their voluntarily abandoned precinct, they will continue to fail to prevent crime and spend more time racially profiling Black people. This is one of the many reasons we continue to demand that the city of Seattle greatly reduce SPD’s $402 million budget. This budget has increased by $100 million over the past 5 years while other public services have been slashed. We must reinvest that money in restorative justice and evidence-based community programs for Seattle’s at-risk youth. We must reinvest the SPD’s bloated budget into services for drug addiction, mental health, and homelessness. Sweeps and arrests do not solve these problems.
The story of CHOP did not begin with the East Precinct and it does not end with the East Precinct. It began with police violence, and on July 1, SPD attempted to end it with more police violence.
The Seattle protests did not end yesterday. And despite admonitions from our white neighbors who “support Black Lives Matter” but would love for us to go away, they won’t end today either.
Protesters will continue to focus, through various means of action, on the real goals:
• Defund the SPD by at least 50 percent
• Reinvest those funds in community restorative justice, health care and housing
• Free all jailed protesters.
- Seattle Black Collective Voice, speaking solely on behalf of BCV organizers. Find more information at BlackCollectiveVoice.org.
Read more of the July 8-14, 2020 issue.