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» » Some occupiers make a stand, others prepare for exit from CHOP as city moves in to clear parts of Capitol Hill protest zone — UPDATE: 'Sunday morning' - CHS Capitol Hill Seattle News

Some occupiers make a stand, others prepare for exit from CHOP as city moves in to clear parts of Capitol Hill protest zone — UPDATE: 'Sunday morning' - CHS Capitol Hill Seattle News

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Protesters stand near large barriers as city crews wait to clear the streets — but not the campers — around the East Precinct (Image: CHS)

With reporting by Jake Goldstein-Street

The city’s process to begin the physical dismantling of CHOP began early Friday morning with a line of Seattle Department of Transportation trucks stretched down 12th Ave.

Like most moments around the Capitol Hill protest zone, things didn’t immediately go as planned. By 7:30 AM, things were on hold after the head of SDOT agreed to provide a “formal letter” to the camp explaining the day’s planned actions to clear art and barriers from the right of way and begin the the clean-up of Cal Anderson Park.

Like most moments around the Capitol Hill protest zone, it seemed clear the letter would be only a next step and the city trucks weren’t going anywhere.

UPDATE 6:15 PM: A marathon meeting between Mayor Jenny Durkan and camp organizers Friday afternoon inside 14th Ave’s First African Methodist Episcopal Church produced a lengthy airing of grievances and debate over a Sunday morning deadline.

Nobody from the mayor’s office spoke to media after the more than three hour session but those who attended said the mayor was clear — the protest campers can stay outside the East Precinct and the large cement barriers that protect that camping area can stay but the other streets around the Capitol Hill protest zone must be clear of barriers by Sunday morning.

Whether there is agreement on that deadline is another matter.

Independent journalist Omari Salisbury hosted an impromptu press conference at 12th and Pine following the meeting after he said he had been asked to attend by the camp representatives meeting with the mayor. but that the mayor herself asked him to stop providing live updates of the proceedings.

Salisbury described the Sunday morning deadline and said that the mayor met most of the camp’s demands by either explaining how the city is already doing things like in-patrol car video, or detailing her initiatives that she felt would yield better results in a kind of “working on, better idea, met, or out of her hands” approach.

Salisbury said there was also a lot of discussion of increasing the amount of human services being offered to help homeless and undershletered people clear Cal Anderson. Salisbury said there was no formal agreement on the Sunday morning barrier deadline but that there was not active opposition from the camp representatives as the meeting was winding down.

Mark Anthony, a member of the CHOP camp who attended the session, said no decisions have been made about Sunday but that the camp is weighing its options. “I’ve already said the point of a movement it to remain moving,” Anthony said.

But Anthony said, for now the camp will “continue on.”

“The thing that we’re waiting for next is to find a solution that works for both the city and the protesters so we can continue at a new location.”

Anthony said the mayor won’t consider converting the East Precinct into a community center. Anthony’s proposal is to integrate the facility with a social services center.

As for concerns about another flare up of violence this weekend one week after last Saturday’s shootings, Anthony said much of Friday’s meeting was about safety and that there is hope for a better plan to create safe meeting spaces where camp volunteers can meet up with emergency responders and avoid potentially deadly delays.

ORIGINAL REPORT:

SDOT director Sam Zimbabwe drew a crowd Friday morning (Image: CHS)

Workers said they were there to clear out things like wood barriers and store art for pickup. One handed out donuts while a protester blocked a backhoe parked in the middle of 12th Ave with a bored city worker at the wheel. Nobody, they said, was there to sweep out the campers.

A large crowd formed around SDOT director Sam Zimbabwe as he made his case in an orange SDOT vest and black COVID-19 mask for clearing the right of way and making the area more “normal” for businesses and residents.

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Later, regular camp presence Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggins also arrived for a smaller, calmer talk with protesters.

Friday is the deadline for Mayor Jenny Durkan and the city to document its CHOP planning or face an injunction threatened in a federal lawsuit brought by a group of Pike/Pine and 12th Ave area property owners and a small set of neighborhood businesses.

Thursday, some activists began the work to establish new efforts beyond the occupation. The Black Collective Voice, a group made up of organizers and protesters looking to reclaim what they see as a false narrative about the zone, said they plan to continue the fight for defunding the Seattle Police Department and winning new efforts to support Black and BIPOC communities.

“We will stay here as long as the people want to stay here,” Naudia Miller, the co-executive director of the Harriet Tubman Foundation for Safe Passage, said at a Thursday afternoon press conference on Pine between 11th and 12th. “Our movement to liberate Black lives is not restricted to one space. We recognize the importance of this space and we will continue to build off the relationships that we made in this space.”

But the stage has been set for exit. Miller said that occupying the East Precinct was never the goal of demonstrators who spent a week at 11th and Pine fighting to walk through the streets past the police building.

“Stewarding and protecting the East Precinct only became possible when the Seattle Police Department left that space,” Miller said. “What transpired after that was organic.”

The demands of CHOP demonstrators and this group are for the SPD to be defunded by at least 50%, for that money to be redirected to the Black community, and for protesters not to be prosecuted.

Seattle Police’s limited presence in the zone around 11th and Pine and Cal Anderson Park and growing criticism that the camp’s purpose of occupying the area and the “Seattle People’s Precinct” has brought criticism that the occupation is overtaking greater Black Lives Matter goals.

Responding to neighborhood concerns, Miller said “we appreciate your patience,” but “as Black People, Indigenous people, and people of color, we feel an intense burden every moment of our lives that I would say the burden of owning a business doesn’t compare to the struggles of living in a nation that is built on anti-Black racism.”

“We hear you business owners, we’re doing our best,” Miller said. “We are dealing with trauma always.”

Miller looked to counter narratives that CHOP is the cause of the recent gun violence around Cal Anderson Park and put the onus on institutions.

“Governing bodies have continued to fail at resolving these issues, despite clear direction from Black, Indigenous, POC community leaders who are of the communities who are impacted the most,” she said, adding that it seems to her that these bodies are more interested in getting back to “business as usual.”

Police presence around the clearance work outside the emptied East Precinct was minimal. One officer on the scene said he was there as an “observer.” A camp security volunteer part of the protest from its first days gave the officer an earful, worried about changes coming to the streets that might remove heavy cement barriers from the 12th and Pine intersection and expose campers to new dangers.

Camp sentries stood watch on the protest zone’s borders watching for vehicles and reporting strangers.

Residents and businesses in the area were also presented with a new challenge from the protest and the city’s response — the United States Postal Service has joined other services in ceasing deliveries in the area. Residents of the Packard Building were sent this message from building management saying USPS was directing people to pick up mail at the Broadway post office.

The smaller camp effort still stretches into areas of Cal Anderson but that part of the zone has been shrinking leaving a heavily used, and graffiti-covered park behind. The city is beginning to plan clean-up and repair efforts for the popular central park that became the center of the protest in recent weeks.

Leaders of the remaining occupation have, meanwhile, centered their efforts to camping outside the East Precinct headquarters.

Friday’s clearance effort follows an erosion of the sprawling protest camp as a weekend bout of deadly gun violence pushed Mayor Durkan to join SPD Chief Carmen Best in calling for an end of the occupation and the return of police to the East Precinct headquarters. It is time for demonstrators to “go home” and “time to restore order and eliminate the violence on Capitol Hill,” Durkan said. Durkan and Best have made it clear they believe it is too dangerous to march police in to retake the zone. Community outreach, social services, and time, so far, have helped. Friday’s efforts to remove some of the actual, physical structure of the camp seem likely to further reduce the protest.

UPDATE 11:15 AM: A statement from the city says Seattle Police has “no plans” to return to the East Precinct Friday after “city staff…initiated efforts early in the morning to continue the recovery of the Capitol Hill neighborhood.”

UPDATE 2:15 PM: Protest and camp organizers are at 14th Ave’s First African Methodist Episcopal Church for an afternoon meeting with the mayor’s office in which activists say they will present their demands for ending the occupation around the East Precinct. It isn’t clear if Mayor Jenny Durkan is in attendance but Deputy Mayor Mike Fong is reportedly at the church.

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Some occupiers make a stand, others prepare for exit from CHOP as city moves in to clear parts of Capitol Hill protest zone — UPDATE: 'Sunday morning' - CHS Capitol Hill Seattle News
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