Shameless in Seattle

When City Councils Attack Law & Order

After months of violent rioting, Seattle is still not safe. Millions of dollars in damages, hundreds of businesses damaged, destroyed, or closed. Untold thousands of jobs lost. From the end of May to October, 163 Seattle police officers have been injured—burnt or blasted with commercial mortars, battery acid bombs, and Molotov cocktails; beaten with steel bars, clubs, bricks, rocks, baseball bats, and frozen water bottles. They have been attacked with laser pointers, and caustic chemicals. Injuries range from broken bones, concussions, contusions, separated shoulders, torn ligaments, partial blindness, and hearing loss from commercial grade mortar fireworks, fired point blank.

From the International District, along 1st Avenue to 4thAvenue, all the way up to Capitol Hill and beyond, businesses remain boarded up and closed. You wouldn't know it from the media coverage, but the violence, arson, and destruction continues. October ushered in the sixth month of chaos with a troop of violent "activists" shattering windows, defacing buildings and hurling explosives into storefronts. "Save a life, kill a cop!" they shouted. "Kill Cops!" they screamed, "Death to Fascists!" The federal government has declared the entire city of Seattle an Anarchist Jurisdiction for "allowing violence and the destruction of property, and its refusal to counteract criminal activities." Who did this? Who is responsible? Seattle did it. Mayor Durkan did it. The Seattle City Council did it. Saul Alinsky did it. Yes, Saul Alinsky. Dead for half a century and still "tearing it all down" through hired thugs and malcontent proxies voted into office by a complacent citizenry.

When 10,000 violent looters and arsonists ran wild in the streets of Seattle, the vastly outnumbered Seattle Police Department deployed pepper spray, blast balls, and foam-tipped projectiles to effectively reroute and channel the marauding hordes. Rioters, unable to destroy more of Seattle's downtown business core, moved north into the Capitol Hill residential district, where they were again, stopped by police.

Riot organizers, frustrated by the SPD's effective use of non-lethal crowd control measures, appealed to Mayor Durkan and the City Council (led by Councilwoman Kshama Sawant), who promptly banned the police from using non-lethal methods of crowd control. Black Lives Matter threatened to "burn it all down" if the police did not leave Capitol Hill. Mayor Durkin, with vague assurances from the terrorist leadership that the property would "be protected by 'BLM Security,'" ordered the police to vacate, and surrender the entire East Police Precinct. She ordered the police out, instructed city departments to provide tentage, bedding, meals, and even porta-potties for the "occupiers," and move concrete barricades to protect the "protesters" from the police. Mayor Durkan ceded the entire neighborhood plus the adjoining Cal Anderson Park, to Black Lives Matter. "It's more like a block party atmosphere, not a military takeover," she said. "It's not a military junta. We will – we will make sure that we can restore this."

The terrorists promptly declared a "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ)," blocking access to all "outsiders." Black Lives Matter "Security" subjected residents to bizarre "Checkpoint Charlie" entry and exit protocols. Police, Fire, and Emergency Aid were denied access. When the uneasy mix of BLM, Antifa and "Oregon Anarchists" realized that the "Zone" was playing poorly in the press, they reached back to their collective "brain trust" and came up with "Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP)" as more in step with 1st Amendment guarantees.

I am exaggerating, right? This could never happen in an American city.

According to Seattle Police Officers Guild President Mike Solan, it only gets worse. "I have never, ever, in over twenty years of service as a public safety professional, witnessed elected officials abrogate their sworn duty to protect the public," said Solan. "They collaborated with criminals to, in effect, hold an entire neighborhood hostage, willfully depriving American citizens of police protection, and the freedom to go about their lives unfettered, unchallenged, and free from threats of bodily harm." Astounded by the mayor's surrender of Capitol Hill, Cal Anderson park, and the East Police Precinct, the rioters demanded that the entire police department be "Defunded." The Mayor agreed to consider the proposal, provoking a scrum with the City Council to see who could curry the most favor with the criminal occupiers. The "Defund the Police NOW" slogan frightened tax payers, and the Mayor, City Council, and even Seattle Chief of Police Carmen Best, embraced a re-worked "Re-imagine the Police" battle cry.

"Go after people and not institutions. People hurt faster than institutions."

The uneasy alliance between City Hall and City Council fractured, pitting the Council against the Mayor and Police Chief, and eventually, council members against council members. The equally fractured BLM/Antifa/Anarchist alliance played the Mayor against the Police Chief and both against the council, lauding and condemning the players in-turn.

The Mayor demanded that the Council expel Sawant for illegally herding hundreds of rioters into a City Hall auditorium for an afterhours rally. Sawant countered by leading hundreds of "protesters" to Mayor Durkan's home to threaten her family and vandalize her property, warning that those who dared to oppose the "modest" demands of the socialists, would face a mob. Her recurring rants include: "We are coming for you and your rotten system," and "We are coming to dismantle this deeply oppressive racist, sexist, police state."

When Police Chief Carmen Best (Seattle's first black female Chief of Police) seemed to side with the mayor against the City Council, Sawant sent 200 Black Lives Matter "activists" to Best's home loaded with duffle bags of weapons and munitions. They were met by armed neighbors, and the Police Chief's home was spared. The City Council responded by cutting Best's salary, gutting her department, and forcing her "retirement."

When Council President M. Lorenza Gonzalez, and council members Alex Pedersen, Teresa Mosqueda, and Deborah Juarez's support for defunding the police stopped short of 50% cuts, Black Lives Matter descended upon their homes, threatening their families and neighbors. They even attacked the homes of council members Lisa Herbold and Tammy Morales—both of whom supported the cuts—apparently, to prevent "backsliding." Herbold called for the firing of white police officers to avoid losing "officers of color," and by the end of July, the council voted to cut the Seattle police force by 100 officers.

Chaotic enough? It gets worse. Much worse.

Faced with a hostile mayor, a combative city council, a partisan press, and a newly appointed interim police chief, the rank and file's only advocate was Seattle Police Officers Guild President, Mike Solan. "We are currently dealing with politicians that are governing on behalf of radical activists, that are looking to nullify police resources, and our ability to protect public safety," said Solan. "There is only one end game, and that is to abolish the police."

So after six months of terror, where are we at? Did Saul Alinsky win?

In early October, the ACLU, the law firm Perkins Coie, and Seattle University School of Law, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court on behalf of Black Lives Matter to "curb SPD's abuses of less-lethal weapons." Police officers will be forced to either shoot to kill, or retreat.

Mayor Durkan's 2021 proposed budget reduces SPD's budget by $22.5 million, transfers parking enforcement to the Department of Transportation, transfers Victim Advocates to the Human Services Department, and "reimagines" the Office of Emergency Management, and the 911 Communications Center, as "new independent agencies." SPD has NOT been brought to the table to help "re-imagine" law enforcement in Seattle.

The City Council ignored a request from 550 downtown businesses NOT to defund the SPD. The trend for business owners to board up downtown businesses and flee the city continues to accelerate.

Saul Alinsky won.