Businesses sue Seattle over ‘occupied’ protest zone
'CHOP' protestors staying put at Seattle police East precinct, after city officials call to end violence inside protest zone, on June 23, 2020. (Q13 News photo).
SEATTLE - A collection of Seattle businesses, property owners and residents sued the city Wednesday over its tolerance of an “occupied” protest zone, saying officials have been complicit in depriving them of their rights to their property.
The plaintiffs — including a tattoo parlor, auto repair shop and property management firm — emphasized in the lawsuit that they were not trying to undermine the anti-police-brutality or Black Lives Matter messaging of the “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest.”
“Rather, this lawsuit is about the constitutional and other legal rights of plaintiffs — businesses, employees, and residents in and around CHOP — which have been overrun by the city of Seattle’s unprecedented decision to abandon and close off an entire city neighborhood, leaving it unchecked by the police, unserved by fire and emergency health services, and inaccessible to the public at large,” the lawsuit said.
The Seattle City Attorney’s Office said it had not yet seen the lawsuit but would review it.
The “occupation” began June 8 when the Seattle Police Department, following days of intense clashes with demonstrators in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police, abandoned its East Precinct building in the densely populated Capitol Hill neighborhood. Protesters moved police barricades to block traffic, and scores camped in a nearby park.
The protest has drawn the scorn of President Donald Trump, who asserted it was being run by anarchists.
A festive atmosphere has prevailed for much of the time since then, with participants painting a large Black Lives Matter mural on the street and volunteers handing out free food. But openly armed “sentinels” have also kept watch, and the atmosphere has sometimes been more menacing at night. Police said typical response times to emergency calls in the area, which stretched several blocks, had tripled.
Mayor Jenny Durkan has expressed support for the protest, calling it “a peaceful expression of our community’s collective grief and their desire to build a better world,” and the city has helped it by providing different barricades to better protect participants from vehicles.
But following three shootings in the area on consecutive nights beginning last weekend, Durkan said this week the city would wind down the protest zone, at first by encouraging demonstrators to leave voluntarily, and that police would return to the precinct. But neither she nor Police Chief Carmen Best gave a specific timeline for when that would happen.