Seattle, Washington’s CHAZ/CHOP experience: A cautionary tale

 

The takeover of six blocks of Seattle, Washington early last month as a protest of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis, Minnesota police was allowed to stand by the Seattle mayor, Jenny Durkan.

Perhaps she truly believed that allowing a group to hijack an area of her city, given the current riotous atmosphere in the country, was the best way to address the problem. Maybe the protesters would get tired in a few days of living without the normal comforts of life, and the small price those who lived, worked or owned businesses in the area had to pay was worth it. Or, perhaps she was just afraid to do her job, as she was expected to do.

Durkan characterized the Capitol Hill area as a place where people often express themselves. Defending her decision, after visiting the area where she had spoken with organizers, she said it was a place where people, including police officers, come and go freely.

She is not the only one who attempted to paint a rosy picture of the goings-on. A reporter for MSNBC termed the atmosphere there as “almost like a street festival.” His characterization was immediately disputed by an unhappy protester who said, “No, it is not a street festival! It is not a street festival! It is not a street festival! Do not say that!”

The mob of thousands that took control of the area -- which included a police precinct that was willingly abandoned by the mayor, in a move to defuse the situation -- called the area the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ). Later, the CHAZ was renamed the CHOP, which had two different, but similar translations: Capitol Hill Occupied Protest or Capitol Hill Organized Protest.

As should have been expected, what Durkan called “a summer of love” turned bad rather quickly. The takeover should have been met with immediate action by the city’s elected leaders and the police department. But the takeover was allowed to stand.

Judging by what transpired in the CHAZ/CHOP, a more appropriate name for it would have been the Capital Hill Anarchy Zone.

The mostly peaceful daytime hours devolved as darkness fell, with violence growing as time passed. Graffiti on streets and buildings, trash and other things left in the street, robberies, assaults and other violent crimes, including three serious injuries from shootings, and two black teenagers who were shot to death.

Horace Lorenzo Anderson, Sr., the father of Lorenzo Anderson, Jr. the 19-year-old boy who was murdered on June 21, said that neither the mayor nor anyone in the city administration notified him of his son’s murder. He heard about it from two of his son’s friends who happened to be in the area. He criticized local officials for failing to stop the violence sooner.

Durkan reacted to the shootings by noting that the CHAZ had grown less safe instead of safer over time, and the effect on the surrounding community had not been positive. Was that not absolutely predictable?

“The cumulative impacts of the gatherings and protests and the nighttime atmosphere and violence has led to increasingly difficult circumstances for our businesses and residents,” she said. “The impacts have increased and the safety has decreased.” She ordered the area cleared.

Seattle police chief Carmen Best said: “This order, and our police response, comes after weeks of violence in and around the Capital Hill Occupied Protest zone, including four shootings, resulting in multiple injuries and the deaths of two teenagers.”

And so, the end of something that should never have started finally came about. At least 13 people were arrested.

And, guess what? Durkan called for charges to be dismissed against those who were arrested for misdemeanors. She also said that the community garden and artworks that protesters created would be saved.

However, businesses and property owners affected by the CHAZ have filed a federal lawsuit against the city claiming officials’ tolerance of the CHAZ deprived property owners of their rights by allowing the zone to exist.

Perhaps it was just a coincidence that the mayor awakened to the problem shortly after the “summer of love” street party rioters showed up at her home. A female member of the BLM mob told KING-TV, "We came down to Jenny Durkan's mansion to bring the demands of the movement and of the families who have been impacted by police violence, uh, to her doorstep and she seems to not be able to hear our demands any other way."

The leftists in Black Lives Matter and Antifa seem to think mob violence is the way to control the narrative. And, based upon many non-responses to mob violence, it seems to be working.

Giving in to the mob in Seattle and elsewhere has allowed much destruction and many injuries, and two deaths. But the complacency that allows the riots to continue seems at last to be waning.

It is perhaps too much to hope that the leftists will learn from this cautionary tale, but the country will certainly be far and away better off if they do. In any case, the lawlessness must be stopped.

The Left declares war on expressing ideas, except for their ideas

 

 

In many American colleges, students expect to be protected from any material that is at odds with their limited ideas. Easily frustrated when their expectations of ideological isolation are breached, petulance results and protests are organized.

This same fear of and intolerance for different ideas brings out older protesters who also are intolerant of having to work to convince non-believers of the superiority of their ideas, which leads to breaking, burning, and otherwise damaging and destroying things, and bullying their way along, because that is an easy substitute for the arduous work of intellectual persuasion.

The ideological divide is so great that many on the Left will not listen to, read, or otherwise have any contact with ideas that disagree with their millimeter-wide field of views, and worse, they will try to prevent even those who choose to explore those ideas from doing so.

The protests of old, once an activity to show one’s disagreement with disliked ideas in a constitutional, legal and peaceful protest with marchers carrying signs, has devolved into crime-laden events where black-clad, mask-wearing, anti-free speech mobs commit violence, property damage and personal injury.

Increasingly violent protests at the University of California - Berkeley prompted officials to cancel a speech by conservative writer and activist Milo Yiannopoulous in February. More than 1,500 people gathered to protest Yiannopoulous, at the time was an editor for the Breitbart News website. Protesters held signs that read "Hate Speech Is Not Free Speech,” pledging to shut down the event, all the while demonstrating their profound ignorance of the First Amendment.

What began as a peaceful demonstration degenerated as the night wore on, police said. Protesters threw smoke bombs, knocked down barriers, set fires and started fights.

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter was slated to speak at UC - Berkeley late last month at the invitation of the Berkeley College Republicans. But the school said the event couldn’t be held on campus because of the potential for violent protests between pro-Coulter groups and anti-Coulter groups. Berkeley was unwilling to discourage violence and protect people on its campus, so the speech was moved off campus.

Ironically, these two events occurred at the site where the free speech movement originated in the 60s when Berkeley students insisted that the university administration lift the ban of on-campus political activities and acknowledge the students' right to free speech and academic freedom. Is UC - Berkeley now the home of the anti-free speech movement?

Ultimately, the speech was cancelled when UC – Berkeley caved in its duty to uphold its noble defense of free speech.

Not all of the Left is opposed to different ideas, or the concept of free speech. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., while condemning Coulter’s ideas, to his credit defended her right to express them, and said “people have a right to give their two cents-worth, give a speech, without fear of violence and intimidation.”

“Berkeley used to be the cradle of free speech. Now it’s just the cradle for [expletive deleted] babies,” said Bill Maher, host of HBO’s Real Time. “… I feel like this is the liberals’ version of book burning. It’s got to stop.”

An anonymous email is the reason that Portland, Oregon cancelled last weekend’s annual Rose Festival parade, according to The Washington Post. Angered by the participation of the Multnomah County Republican Party, two self-described antifascist groups pledged to protest and disrupt the event.

“You have seen how much power we have downtown and that the police cannot stop us from shutting down roads so please consider your decision wisely,” the email said, referring to the post-election violence last year. “This is nonnegotiable.” The groups threatened to “rush into the parade” and “drag and push” those Republicans participating.

Many of these protesters are victims of coddling and protective treatment that has convinced them that they are somehow special and entitled to play by their own rules, which more and more reflect a tendency toward exercising strong dictatorial control where people are not allowed to disagree with them – in a word: fascism. More confusion by the Left was demonstrated when the people who call their movement “antifascism” depend upon fascist tactics to accomplish their fascist goals.

Many people, including those on the right who are the target of these criminal acts, are fed up with this behavior to the point of taking action. Some of them are willing to meet violence with violence, as was cited by UC-Berkeley in the Coulter speech calamity. This fascist behavior is a large pimple on the face of the Left, making Democrats and others on that side of the political spectrum look particularly foolish, and un-American.

The Democrat Party is generally regarded as the head of the American Left, but the Democrats are in disarray, desperately searching for a leader – will it be Schumer, Obama, Biden, Hillary, Perez (Heaven help us) – and a sensible course to follow, other than merely stomping their feet and holding their breath protesting the election of five months ago, and obstructing everything.

And the fascist wing needs to very quickly be educated the about the freedoms this great country provides that they apparently didn’t learn in school.