![]() ![]() But signs began popping up, and they were outrageous, and that made them funny. It’s not clear which came first, the collective desire to set up the zone or the sign declaring it. Then, someone put up a sign: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. “And that was one of the things that made it so wonderful and so appealing.” ![]() “There’s nowhere else in the city where you have people coming together in conversations with one goal,” she said. She said they were unified on ending police brutality. ![]() Someone put a microphone and speaker outside the police building, and people talked about the change they wanted to see. “I was there the first night the police left,” Tarika Powell said. In an address to officers, Police Chief Carmen Best said “leaving the precinct was not my decision,” but “ultimately, the city had other plans for the building and relented to severe public pressure.” ![]() Graffiti bearing the name of George Floyd is seen June 24 in Cal Anderson Park in the CHOP. Instead it became a kind of rallying point. Police tried to prevent protesters from marching past it and to disperse the crowd with tear gas and pepper balls. Seattle’s protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody grew violent around the East Precinct. With police absent from the 6-square-block area, the experiment spun out of control, with accusations that it ended up causing exactly what it had aimed to stop: more violence against Black people. But once they created a police-free zone, they immediately had to deal with all those issues and more – with only the donated time and supplies of fellow protesters, who still had day jobs. They argued armed officers shouldn’t be called to respond to issues of mental health, homelessness, poverty. Protesters wanted to end police violence against Black people by defunding the department by 50%. There's a growing call to defund the police. (Photo by Samuel Corum / AFP) (Photo by SAMUEL CORUM/AFP via Getty Images) Samuel Corum/AFP/Getty Images The death Monday of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, at the hands of police in Minneapolis ignited this latest wave of outrage in the US over law enforcement's repeated use of lethal force against African Americans - this one like others before captured on cellphone video. Thousands of National Guard troops patrolled major US cities after five consecutive nights of protests over racism and police brutality that boiled over into arson and looting, sending shock waves through the country. TOPSHOT - A Police officer charges forward as people protest the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police in front of the White House in Washington, D.C. How it evolved is a case study in human nature, violence, mental illness, homelessness, and the difficulty in imagining a world without police. “The last two weeks it’s been turned into a militant cult.” “The CHOP was really good for a week,” said J.R.P., who did not want her name published for fear she’d be fired from her job. The HVAC system of her apartment building in the CHOP territory – named for the neighborhood and once called the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone – had been contaminated four times during the protests by tear gas, and she was hit in the shoulder by a rubber bullet.īut she is not going to miss the protest. “This is like being rescued by your abuser,” J.R.P. In Wednesday’s early morning hours, Seattle police cleared the Capitol Hill Organized Protest area, a relatively quiet end to a demonstration that had evolved into an art party, a garden, a tourist attraction, a tent city, a presidential fixation and the scene of multiple shootings, two of them fatal. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |