I watched the Seattle WTO protests break out into property destruction and street fighting directly below my office in Westlake.
The Eugene Anarchists (definitely radical leftists) all gathered in the park, pulled down their black masks, pulled out their hammers, and started smashing windows.
Later, they squatted in an abandoned building one block from a Seattle Police Department station house for about a month. Everyone knew they were there, and they were the ones who started the riot. The liberal Seattle City Administration disallowed the Police from arresting them, so far as I can tell.
The best scene from that day was when the police were shooting flash-bang grenades, and a protester was running across Westlake park. The bang went off right between his legs. “That’s gonna leave a mark!”
I worked in the Seafirst Fifth Ave Building and lived on Lower Queen Anne at the time. Walking home through those assholes was very interesting.
And scary.
Seafirst actually put most of their downtown employees up at hotels during the violence.