A mural of the Black Lives Matter began to form on East Pine Street in the so-called “Capitol Hill Autonomy Zone” on June 10, in Seattle, Washington. David Ryder / Getty Images
The ongoing protest in Seattle has sparked a Twitter dispute between President Donald Trump, the city’s mayor, Jenny Durkan, and Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who are both Democrats.
What happened?
Seattle Assistant Police Chief Deanna Nollettesaid they had received reports that a group of protesters set up a barricade and “several armed men run it as a checkpoint” in the eastern city on Capitol Hill.
CNN affiliate KOMO reported that protesters had surrounded the area with barricades and called it the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. The police left the East Precinct building in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, going up, but were not inhabited. Officers only respond to emergency calls.
“While they have constitutional rights to bear arms, and while Washington is a country that carries open goods, there is no legal right for weapons to be used to intimidate members of the public,” Nollette said at a press conference on Wednesday. “No one at this checkpoint has the legal authority to request identification from anyone.”
However, Nollette said “in an effort to try to collaborate and work together and move forward peacefully, we are trying to make dialogue work.”
“We are trying to find a way to resolve this without overly influencing the residents and businesses operating in the area,” he said. “We do not want important messages about justice and improving police relations and increasing racial justice to be eliminated by this small faction about what happened.”
Who arranged it?
That’s not clear now. Nollette said the police were trying to find a point of contact to establish dialogue.
Seattle officials said they had no indication that the occupied territories were being coordinated by left-wing activist groups under the umbrella of Antifa, despite online rumors to the contrary.
“City officials have not yet interacted with the ‘armed antifa militants’ on this site, but will continue to be on location to monitor the situation closely,” Lori Patrick with the mayor’s office told CNN.
What does Trump say?
Trump tweeted that “domestic terrorists have taken over Seattle,” claiming they are “run by Democratic Left Radicals.” In another tweet, he said Mayor Durken and Governor. Inslee needs to “take back” their city and that “these ugly Anarchists must be bent (soon) IMMEDIATELY.”
