Citizens of the ‘CHOP’ zone outside the (temporarily?) defunct police station
The self-declared Capitol Hill Occupied Protest Zone (‘CHOP’) in Seattle has become a symbolic reference point of the protests in the US. For some it represents the ideals of individual freedom and liberty and the rejection of the ever expanding encroachment of ‘the State’ (and, one could add, ‘the Market’) over the lives of the citizens they are supposed to serve. For others, it represents the destructive and chaotic forces of malignant or ignorant masses, anarchists and hooligans (usually ‘left-wing’, whatever that means today) who produce and contribute nothing to society and intend to destroy social order and everything positive.
Many commentators are seeking to turn every incident in the zone into proof positive that their opinion has been proven ‘beyond a doubt’, and extrapolate from there to either valorise or condemn the protest movement, en masse and without distinction, across the US. The zone has come to epitomize efforts to either defend and praise, or disparage and discredit, the CHOP and the concepts and principles upon which it was founded – that the police have become a tool of oppression and discrimination, which has been simplified and reduced over time to the raw conflict between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’, usually with heavy racist undertones.
Increasingly violent clashes between Seattle Police and protesters, including several shooting incidents, prompted SPD to abandon its East Precinct about two weeks ago in an effort to pacify protestors, and the demonstrators established a six-to-nine block occupied protest zone around the abandoned building.
Map of the autonomous zone
The protesters say they’re trying to demonstrate that society can manage without police intervention. The initiative has made headlines nationwide and has drawn strong condemnation from President Trump, who has threatened to take action if the governor and city leaders don’t take back the occupied zone.
A volunteer provides security at one of the entrances to the zone
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and other city leaders have called the occupied protest a largely peaceful one and said Capitol Hill has long been a hub for First Amendment activity. The city council has made numerous concessions to accommodate the protesters demands, including setting up concrete barriers to stop traffic from entering the zone and agreeing to keep it free of police unless there’s a life-threatening emergency.
Durkan elaborated on the reasons for the decision to negotiate with the protestors and defended the actions taken on her Twitter account:
The #CHOP has emerged as a gathering place for community to demand change of their local, state, and federal government. At the @CityofSeattle, we’ve made a few changes to facilitate first amendment activities while also maintaining safety and access for all of our residents. LINK
While the situation in the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest zone continues to evolve, some people whose homes and apartments are located inside the CHOP say they feel like hostages in their own neighbourhood. Many business owners and residents of the area have criticised the measures, and police have stated that response times have tripled in the area.
While demonstrations within the CHOP zone have mostly been peaceful, there are also reports that businesses are being asked to pay protestors to continue operating in the area, and an increasing number of claims that acts of violence and robbery are now rampant in the zone.
Russell Kimble, owner of Car Tender on the edge of the CHOP, said his auto shop was burglarized and set on fire Saturday night. He said when he called police, they didn’t arrive. Kimble’s son and his business partner responded to the burglary, and ended up getting into a scuffle with protesters.
Police Chief Carmen Best said officers observed the incident from afar and did not find any reason to intervene, but she has also said abandoning the precinct was not her decision and “if you’re asking about the current situation, it’s not one that l like.” LINK
The debate over whether the movement is a worthwhile social experiment in alternative forms of maintaining social relations or a dangerous criminal subversive threat against the Seattle residents and the US in general has heated up over the last couple of days as the first homicide has occurred in the zone.
A post at ZeroHedge proclaimed:
Following roughly 2 weeks of existence that have been characterized by an incessant stream of video showing beatdowns, brazen theft, armed robbery and myriad other crimes and/or ‘revolutionary’ acts, Seattle’s autonomous zone has finally sustained its first casualty since “declaring independence” from the US.
At least one person is dead with another in critical condition after a shooting early Saturday morning in the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, or CHOP (as they’re now calling it). The shooting comes after the mayor of Seattle decided to appease the group of mostly fringe leftists and anarchists by barring cops from using tear gas and other crowd control methods. LINK
Officers responding to the shooting initially said they had trouble getting to the scene because they were “were met by a violent crowd that prevented officers safe access to the victims,” Seattle Police said on their blog.
Two males with gunshot wounds arrived in private vehicles at Harborview Medical Center about half an hour after the shooting, a hospital spokeswoman said. A 19-year-old man died while the other person was in critical condition in the intensive care unit.
“Homicide detectives responded and are conducting a thorough investigation, despite the challenges presented by the circumstances,” police said.
While critics have renewed and intensified their rhetoric against the movement and the creation of the CHOP zone following the incident, it remains uncertain whether it will provide the basis for returning the area back to ‘normal’, or whether it will be possible for Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and Governor Jay Inslee to maintain the existence of the ‘cop-free zone’ for a while longer.
“We need to have a way for the community to have a way to speak and for police and fire services to be provided,” Mr Inslee said.
“One way or another we obviously need to provide a way to offer protection for people, and that’s a necessity.”
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When the winter arrives in Seattle the BLM cult and antifa will not be so keen to roam the streets of their annexed statelet. :)
That’s if they are not rounded up and transported to a FEMA camp first.
The mayor will probably send in winter clothing and blankets, this will piss off Trump for sure. From looks of map, this autonomous zone has a large park and a baseball field, not so bad for a small zone. Perhaps they can spend their time setting up a minor league team before the tanks roll in? :)
Or start digging trenches, anti tank ditches and preparing IED’s :) Most of the look as if they would benefit from sonm hard labor.
i doubt this soyboys know a thing about ied .
Yes, its also completly irrelevant comming from expertd in peace in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Iran and Turkey. Well – Libya too.
Typical for those areas are, that people emmigrate from there to here in west and often has USA as number one.
Money is same thing. They hope and prefare the dollars will collapse and be converted into liras from Tyrkey, Lebanon and Syria or rials in the Iranian style …
They are not able to do improvemenets in their own countries and 5 times a day they pray for things much worse will happen in USA then this. Russians are same kind of level in their non devellopement zone.
Far out. Its about having a less violent and selective by profiling police, which can be decided by the Washington localParlament as well as smaller parts can be decided by the local parlament in Seatle.
You dont get any of that. This is not about symbolic states like that are better in Honolulu then Alaska.
Hopeftlly the Liberals will be able to cancel the winter which is a White season.
I would have thought that FEMA would be for white male patriarchalists….
Thats true :)
what is wrong with this people ? they stoned and beated the police and now want their protection ? let them rot in their own garbage .
You lost the perspective. Most people there aree not like that at all and those demonstaters certainly are not.
-mom, can I go to a riot against thebpolice? -no lil Johny, it’s dangerous there! -yes but I’m not like that
The article has lost it. The purpose vital changes for the low educated and low paid police, which also seemes to hit black citisens much harder.
In my country we have replaced the many dirt jobs the police is not quilified to here even our polices allhas more education.
We might pay the same or a little more, but I do prefare those policeactions replaced by unarmed socialworkers. We actually has much less crime as well by that.
Thats what they want and not just police using those violnet methids as they do.
In USA You can be handcuffed for a parking ticket or not having ID on You. Here thats solution choise number 4 or 5. A lot seemes to be overescalated and its very strange the many Youtubes about still are no learners reducing problems to gund can only shoot one shot at the time and like that.
Important equalising is needed.
This is not about left and right wings at all but totalarisme, whcih You can find in allkinds of countries. Here that sometimes needed way is out of proportion.
Thought Chop station stop from Uzhgorod in Zakarpaty oblast….big station….small town.
“Increasingly violent clashes between Seattle Police and protesters, including several shooting incidents, prompted SPD to abandon its East Precinct about two weeks ago in an effort to pacify protestors, and the demonstrators established a six-to-nine block occupied protest zone around the abandoned building.”
As someone who is in these areas with a vehicle and on foot on an almost daily basis and has witnessed events first hand outside and inside the no go zone I question the above narrative.
The police and national guard had largely suppressed the worst of the rioting with minimal injuries to the rioters when Mayor Durkin decided to turn the police station and surrounding areas over to rioters and seditionists to drag out and institutionalize the anarchy.
At this time not only is the no go zone a problem for public safety inside the zone. The seditionists go outside of the zone to victimize pedestrians and motorists. There’s a commercial dead zone circumference outside of the zone for many blocks where people are afraid to go. It’s also a staging area for marches on the west precinct a few miles toward the waterfront on the other side of the interstate. Where some of the seditionists are likely planning to lay siege to that station also with the city council’s, mayor’s and governor’s support.
The city government, mayor and governor are trying to portray the concessions and surrender of public and private property to demonstrators, rioters and seditionists as having quelled and pacified the rioters in a justifiable quid pro quo. From what I’ve seen first hand the police and national guard had already accomplished that task with minimal injury. And rather than let the situation return to normal. The mayor choose to exploit the situation to pursue the left’s anti American agenda by instituting sedition before it became clear that the police and national guard operation had restored public safety.
The SPD were ordered out of the East Precinct by the Mayor, or did they abandon it.
They were ordered out. They would have defended it to keep it functioning normally given the opportunity. The mayor wanted to get a sedition zone set up to prolong the anarchy. There is still a skeleton presence in the station keeping protestors out. There may be underground access. The city has a large network of underground passages and rooms.
“it runs under Beacon and Capitol hills”
https://static.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ab3c70fc-25a9-11e9-a7fd-8afa7cd72707-2040×1360.jpg
– In subterranean Seattle, thousands of miles of tunnels, pipes and cables keep the city running –
https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/in-subterranean-seattle-thousands-of-miles-of-tunnels-pipes-and-cables-keep-the-city-running/
Left wing liberals loonatics, Europe is already going to the trash can because of them. Yet, people have the nerve to criticize my country for protecting its people, while you guys are living in chaos. We will do whatever we need to secure our border and the safety of Israelis, even go to a war.
You’ve had non stop striff of your own making for your entire history.
Generally speaking, jews have been instrumental in fomenting the anti-white racial hatred in the west for the last 60 years. Not jews indigenous to the middle east, but ashkenazi in the USA and western Europe.
In this country (USA) jews overwhelmingly support zionism while opposing any sort of self-determination for whites. Hypocrites par excellence…and that’s because it’s a survival strategy for jews here to promote the proliferation of multiculturalism to lower their profile among a sea of other hostile minorities.
Well I can’t tell Jews in Europe or the U.S what to do or who to support, I focus on my country only. Most Zionists are like me which means center-right, so you can compare us to Americans living in the south like Arizona or Texas. While most Jews in the U.S support democrats, we in Israel support republicans. So there is a big difference between us, you can’t say we’re all the same.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/523bde47ffc5dd19f6252c166299c7eea412c454ec951e1947195ea6e03aaa9a.jpg
I’m at the police free zone during an another active shooting incident. The businesses are mostly boarded up for blocks around the sedition zone. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/964b6549b63d171326283be3d1d68b4d18aca5a305586668061ebe1b7b5d54de.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/19dc5124b0bfe80cf10c7de7a4c7b15fe69869fd1664d25994730977d5a5443d.jpg
Inside the camp tonight during the active shooting incident. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5b2b7c0d05825cc72411607b6cc54494e767bcd0f078c7940e4fca2729446f4a.jpg
Let them marinate in their own juice.
“I’ve been having meetings with the Fire Department… and even the Mayor’s assistant every morning at like 5AM, something like that, 7AM, something like that. They’re all calling my number and then trying to bring as many people out here as possible, usually there’s like 12 or 8 people, and then we can have a conversation about what we can do and how we can help.”
– WARLORD RAZ OF SEATTLE AUTONOMOUS ZONE CLAIMS TOTAL CONTROL, SAYS HE SPEAKS WITH MAYOR’S OFFICE DAILY –
https://nationalfile.com/video-warlord-raz-of-seattle-autonomous-zone-claims-total-control-says-he-speaks-with-mayors-office-daily/
This is the mayor’s black lives matter sedition partner handing out guns to seditionists. What could possibly go wrong?
https://youtu.be/1Jr0ILcX9hY
The kind of thing that George Soros would do!
Multiple gunshots happening nearby as I type. Barricades at the police station. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cd70548be5708b712eca834e507411c39f6bd0c4eeab41e3e31bc9541665870a.jpg
No police in sight.
I went lightly armed. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9aaeca508565d9af85992f41e7feeb92ab027b91505cf2d5d8024ab4920d3c3f.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/51c0ac6de09e1a89e744e26e8d675716a4e7b8023fc58e777e5ea54f363e4aae.jpg
Vehicle gear. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/618885feaf984c07da2981ec88f9e9c6108fbf3b3bc0ccbba26f2a0e26e0d916.jpg
chop is a joke. a bad one.
https://youtu.be/ixGBm5A4-jc
https://youtu.be/ixGBm5A4-jc
And you talk about Israel? if someone was shooting on the streets he would be dead in less than 2 minutes here. Not captured or arrested, dead. We take it very seriously here, that’s why most criminals don’t dare to shoot on police officers or citizens.
I really don’t think so. I doubt that you could find the shooters in these types of incidents. And you shoot many unarmed demonstrators who are no threat every week.
Just an example : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_KlXlG3WXc
That’s nowhere near what I was in last night. It was dark, and there were a lot of people with no police anywhere to be seen. The shooter would be long gone before any showed up, which they didn’t. 99% of the people that you deal with are unarmed. That’s not the situation here. If the mayor and city council hadn’t closed the station, disarmed and withdrawn the police. It would have never happened.
If the Palestinians had the type of gun rights that we do. You wouldn’t have 20 killed for every Israeli.
They do have guns, but they know what happens if they use them. Like here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4Hhg3RRTjI
99% of them don’t. It would be much different if they did.
Every Pali that will use a gun against Israelis will be shot dead. The Israeli police is well trained to hunt them down all over Jerusalem.
Some would be, but a lot more Israelis would die if the Palestinians had US type gun rights.
okay.
The warlord guy who rules CHAZ is getting support from the government of Dubai.
Citizens and business owners in “the Zone” paid their sales, property, income taxes, etc., etc. and got in return occupation and extortion from a bunch of left wing nut jobs. Talk about government abdicating its responsibilities.