We have been covering the
Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle as much as possible with our small staff. We captured photos of the initial protests and the first march up Pine St after the police barricades were removed. It's been hard to keep up with the changes, but important to show the world what has been happening in Seattle.
We have gone from Free Capitol Hill, to CHAZ - Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, and now CHOP Capitol Hill Organized Protest and even still some say Occupied Protest. We hope some of the things we have seen and captured help shed more light on this evolving situation in our city.
Above is the photo of the initial barrier on Pine Street that was the focus of 10+ days of protest, tear gas, flash bangs and more. Tiny steps lead to big changes and thanks to Nikkita Oliver and other leaders the Seattle curfew was removed, no tear gas was thrown for a few days, no arrests and no injuries. We were hopeful, but then tear gas has used again. A car drove into the protest and a person was shot trying to stop it and that story is still evolving. People threw fireworks into the crowd that made protestors think there were flash bangs, people threw water bottles and candles at the police, then the police retaliated leading to more violence between protestors and the police. There have been people trying to escalate the situation. We don't know who or why, but we have seen some odd stuff.
On June 8th the barricades were removed and protestors were allowed to march up Pine St. for the first time in over 10 days (photo below). After that new barriers were then put in place by protestors and Free Capitol Hill was born. We did see people with guns that you can see HERE with the purpose to protect the East Precinct on the first night. The last thing local people wanted was for the precinct to get get burnt down. That would defeat the purpose of the protest.
We heard reports of violence, militias controlling the area and more online, so we went up there to look and capture some photos. Sure there was lots of graffiti, but there were no domestic terrorists guarding the entry. Mainly people cleaning and preparing for the day and a lot of George Floyd memorials. Instead of umbrellas being on the front line of the protest they now served as temporary roof tops.
As the week went on the named changed and CHOP evolved, more art, tents, donations and people appeared. Friday was inspiring with the March to Madison (
learn about that here). By Sunday CHOP felt kinda like Capitol Hill Block Party. Emphasize the 'kinda' here. Sunday was Culture Day at CHOP and we watched drummers, dancers and singers and heard some amazing speeches we will never forget. The speeches are what we took away the most and inspired us to put this together and show some of this in a positive light.
Black Lives do matter, the local police do need to be reformed, and we hope to see some movement this week. We actually live and love Seattle. But after talking with a lot of people there's a decent amount of people at CHOP who do not live here and we do not know their motives. The two people who came onto the hill with giant American flags last weekend have the right to do so, but they were only there to stir things up to fulfill a narrative. There are bad players here on all sides, but please don't buy into domestic terrorists are running around Capitol Hill giving out guns. It's not the case.
We are excited to be working with local organizers and will have some great events coming up soon to help support our black community members and educate the rest of the community. As a speaker said yesterday at CHOP: "Don’t just show up, disrupt" and that is exactly what Seattle is doing.
