Free Republic

<p>Roving gangs of Antifa rioters spent Friday evening rampaging through the streets of Seattle — with police often nowhere to be found, video and eyewitness accounts show.</p> <p>Video shared by journalist Andy Ngo shows mobs of individuals clad in black destroying property, smashing windows and spray painting anything in sight, all with impunity.</p>

SEATTLE - Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best is going to resign, two sources familiar with her decision confirmed to Q13's Brandi Kruse. The decision comes after the Seattle City Council voted to slash the department’s budget.

The mayor and police chief urged city council members to slow down discussions about the budget The Seattle City Council voted Monday to move forward with a controversial proposal that would begin the process of defunding the police department. The 7-1 vote comes despite objections from the city's police chief, mayor and the Seattle Police Officers' Guild. The plan would ultimately slash funding to the department but not the 50% some had sought. Seattle currently has around 1,400 police officers, and the current plan would see about 100 cut. It was also cut the police department's $400 million budget by...

The Seattle City Council voted Monday to move forward with a controversial proposal that would begin the process of defunding the police department. The 7-1 vote comes despite objections from the city's police chief, mayor and the Seattle Police Officers' Guild. The plan would ultimately slash funding to the department but not the 50% some had sought. Seattle currently has around 1,400 police officers, and the current plan would see about 100 cut. It was also cut the police department's $400 million budget by about $3 million, according to KOMO. Councilmember Kshama Sawant was the sole "no" vote because she...

Washington state officials confirmed Tuesday that a federal law enforcement unit is leaving Seattle after being sent to the city to quell ongoing demonstrations there. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan (D) and Gov. Jay Inslee (D) said in a statement that the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Border Patrol Tactical Unit has left Seattle after being deployed there “without the consultation or consent of state and local officials.” “The president’s actions to target and ‘dominate’ Democratic cities through the use of federal forces is chilling. It has increased violence in Portland, Seattle and other cities across the country, which was what...

On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “OutFront,” Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan (D) stated that President Trump’s actions “were responsible for what happened this weekend” in Seattle and “we are seeing the dry run for martial law.” Durkan also stated that the best way to bring peace to the city “is to bring more justice to the systems.” Durkan said, “We don’t need the help that the president’s offering, and, in fact, I think the president’s actions have directly escalated and were responsible for what happened this weekend. Many people who were interviewed by media said they came to the protest because...

Democrats have fully pivoted on the nightly Portland riots. They’ve gone all-in on blaming the riots on President Trump thus allying themselves with the antifa and Black Lives Matter anarchist and communist mobs. Instead of black bloc balaclavas or masks, the politicians have donned the cloak of civil libertarianism. In doing so, they make a mockery of it. Democrats, so far as I can find, have never denounced the violent mobs, though New York Governor Andrew Cuomo once wagged a finger at George Floyd rioters while simultaneously explaining that it wasn’t really their fault because “income inequality” led to violence....

Seattle city councilmember Kshama Sawant decried “the brutality of capitalism” after a judge blocked the city’s ban on police crowd-control tools such as tear gas and pepper spray, declaring that the Friday ruling threatened “peaceful protesters.” “Rather than ensure that peaceful protestors are kept safe from federal agents, this court ruling reveals the brutality of American capitalism readying its full arsenal of weapons to attempt to violently suppress demonstrations,” said Ms. Sawant in a Saturday press release. **SNIP** Seattle has been billed as the first U.S. city to prohibit a wide array of crowd-control methods under the ordinance, which passed...

Democrats are moving a step beyond national debate over defunding the police, questioning whether crime is a bad thing at all. During the past month, three leading Democrats have all issued statements blessing criminal acts. As some Seattle residents illegally seized several city blocks in June and christened the area the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, the Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan did not initially intervene. Instead, Durkan said CHAZ was “patriotic” and that it could turn into “a summer of love.” “Burning, rioting, and looting are criminal acts and should never be justified or excused,” said Heritage Foundation President Kay James....

SEATTLE (AP) - Seattle city crews used heavy equipment Tuesday to remove makeshift barriers around the city’s “occupied” protest zone following two fatal shootings in the area. Demonstrators dragged couches and other items to replace the structures. But those were largely gone later Tuesday. **SNIP** Seattle police Assistant Chief Adrian Diaz said the large, makeshift barriers would be removed in incremental steps to allow traffic to move through portions of a road that had been closed off. “So far, you know, everything is peaceful this morning, so that’s a good sign,” Diaz told The Seattle Times. Cement barricades that remained...

SEATTLE - As suddenly as it appeared, the Capitol Hill Occupation Protest was gone. **SNIP** Durkan’s destruction of the CHOP was a reversal of her previous position. On June 12, when Trump accused her of letting anarchists take over the city, Durkan responded, “Seattle is fine. Don’t be so afraid of democracy.” But over the last few weeks, the CHOP had become increasingly controversial. While the daytime scene resembled a music festival or cultural event, the nights became more violent. Six shootings, two of them fatal, occurred in or near the zone in the last two weeks of June, a...

SEATTLE - Hundreds of protesters gathered in Magnuson Park Friday night before making their way to Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan’s neighborhood. The crowd that marched to the mayor’s home was large enough to fill an entire city block, with an estimated two thousand in attendance. **SNIP** The crowd of protesters loudly marched into her neighborhood, chanting about their demands to defund Seattle police and reform justice, and demanding that she resign. The protesters also brought with them a large sound system, noisemakers, cowbells and music. After an hourlong rally, demonstrators paraded past the mayor’s gate where KIRO 7 was told...

@thehill #BREAKING: President Trump says federal government may "take over cities" to combat rising crime: "Numbers are going to be coming down even if we have to go and take over cities."

A King County, Washington, Superior Court Judge has approved a petition for a recall election for Democrat Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan. The Seattle Times reported that the Friday ruling over Durkan’s recent handling of police brutality can proceed, allowing petitioners to start getting enough signatures to get the recall measure on the ballot. KOMO reported that the plaintiffs behind the petition would have to collect 50,000 signatures before an election can be held. The Durkan petitioners’ recall effort accuses Durkan of “endanger(ing) the peace and safety of the community” by allowing the police to “leak false information about fabricated crimes...

When Mayor Jenny Durkan (D-Seattle) finally sent police in to clear up the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) Occupied Protest (CHOP) — perhaps better referred to as “Antifastan” (no offense to Central Asian countries) — she only acted because President Donald Trump was about to do so if she delayed. The president himself confirmed a rumor to that effect on Sean Hannity’s show Thursday night. Trump said he forced Durkan’s hand to restore law and order after antifa militants had seized territory in Seattle. “I had a source that told me, I was not able to confirm it, that one...

Freeway foot race ends with leader of former CHOP zone in handcuffs

Seattle police officers on Thursday continued to gradually reclaim the streets from the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) as video shows cops dive-tackling a group of demonstrators at a downtown intersection where 10 people were arrested. The arrests took place hours after police claimed that demonstrators in the area pelted them with bottles and rocks and shot fireworks in their direction from the same intersection. A group of police officers on bicycles rode toward a line of demonstrators who appeared to be squatting in the middle of the intersection of Broadway and Pine Street at around 5:30pm on Thursday. The...

Father of 19-year-old killed in CHOP says he got condolence call from President Trump, but not Seattle's mayor SEATTLE - The family of a 19-year-old shot and killed at the edge of the Seattle CHOP zone was laid to rest today in Kent. The father of Horace Lorenzo Anderson Jr. told us, he still hasn’t received a call about his son’s death from the Mayor of Seattle Jenny Durkan, but he got a condolence call this morning from President Trump.... "Incredibly, Donald Trump called me," said 50-year-old Horace Lorenzo Anderson Sr. "The President of the United States called me today....

The destructive behavior characterizing Seattle’s “autonomous zone” – otherwise known as the CHOP and formerly known as the CHAZ – is surely viewed through different lenses by the people occupying and doing the damage and those that legally live in the area and have been inconvenienced and menaced over the last month. That distinction has been highlighted recently by lawsuits filed against city leaders who, residents say, have failed to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people living near the CHAZ/CHOP. As a result of that, and the mendacity of Mayor Jenny Durkan, things seem to have turned...

The Seattle Police Department (SPD) moved into the "Capitol Hill Organized Protest" (CHOP) zone and returned to the department's East Precinct early Wednesday morning. The precinct was evacuated on June 11. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan issued a 48-hour executive order for protestors to vacate the area due to the ongoing violence and public safety issues in the area of the East Precinct and Cal Anderson Park. Mayor Durkan's order declared the gathering as an “unlawful assembly” that required immediate action. Police moved into the CHOP just before 5 a.m. and issued a dispersal order to any protestors in the area....