SPD ‘added fuel to the fire’ during 2020 protests with fabricated Proud Boys threat

mynw ^

[algore]

An investigation spanning over a year has revealed that several Seattle police officers participated in a coordinated misinformation effort during the height of social justice protests in 2020.

The ruse — which took place on June 8, 2020 — was first pointed out on social media by activist Matt Watson, when police officers were heard using radio transmissions to describe the movements of a group of right-wing Proud Boys protesters. Officers over the radio described how the group was marching through Seattle, appeared to be armed and agitated, and was moving in the direction of the then-newly-established Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) area.

“Hearing from the Proud Boys group — they may be looking for somewhere else for confrontation,” one officer described over the radio.

At the time, Watson intimated on Twitter that the chatter was likely a fabrication designed to mislead protesters in the CHOP. It wasn’t until the end of that year, though, when an investigation was mounted by the OPA, and only after Converge Media’s Omari Salisbury submitted a request for body-worn camera footage to show what was described by officers. Wrapping up its investigation in September of 2021, the OPA determined that officers had indeed actively and purposefully made up the Proud Boys protest to mislead protesters.

The operation included a range of SPD employees, including Bryan Grenon, who at the time was serving as the captain of the East Precinct. Grenon was later promoted to assistant chief, but is no longer with the department.

In an interview with the OPA, Grenon alleged that there was “no intent to put any kind of false narrative out there,” claiming that he had no knowledge officers were specifically citing the Proud Boys as part of the operation. Rather, he contends, the intention was “to come up with a system where we were just kind of feeding information kind of more mundane, routine kind of information of the radio to make it look like we had more officers out there doing regular stuff.”

Other officers cited concerns over how protesters were monitoring police communications.

Then-SPD Chief Carmen Best denied knowledge of the ruse. Assistant Chief of Patrol Operations Tom Mahaffey did tell the OPA that he was tacitly aware of it, although he claims he did not directly sanction the operation, nor participate in its planning or execution.

“To the contrary, when the ruse was used, SPD officers had already removed themselves from the vicinity of the East Precinct and CHAZ/CHOP was being created,” Myerberg pointed out. “While anger and emotion were high within CHAZ/CHOP, there was no ongoing violence within the zone or imminent violence that could have been reasonably foreseen.”

“The use of the Proud Boys when it was known that the transmissions would be monitored took a volatile situation and made it even more so,” he continued. “It was reasonably foreseeable to believe that the demonstrators would be afraid and concerned that the Proud Boys – some of whom were said to be open-carrying – would come to CHAZ/CHOP. It was also reasonably foreseeable to believe that this could cause demonstrators within the zone to take steps to arm and defend themselves.”

Ultimately, Myerberg concluded that the ruse “improperly added fuel to the fire” during an already-fraught stage in the year’s protests, “and could have had dire results.”

[algore]

Seattle PD needs to retake False Flags 101

[DoughtyOne]

This sort of thing helps to paint the Proud Boys as something
equivalent to ANTIFA. There was talk of the Proud Boys being
the ones who started all the fires in the riots.

That was totally B. S., but his false-flag fed into that sort
of belief.

I have no idea why this seemed like a good idea, slandering
a group of people who didn’t even exist (on site).

[Nextrush]

The police had their hands tied in the summer of 2020 and of course this was known at federal level.

I strongly believe some actual “right wing” confrontations in Portland with the Left may have been FBI operations using well-meaning people recruited on the premise the FBI needed them to deal with BLM-Antifa.

Then the poor folks they recruited may have ended up in the US Capitol on January 6th.

[PAR35]

And now the SPD is running Germany:

SPD wins most seats in Germany’s landmark election ... - CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/26/europe/germany-election-results-polls-2021-grm-intl/index.html

[Bogey78O]

You seriously don’t understand the difference between Seattle Police Department and Social Democrat Party of Germany?