‘We could have a summer of love!’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Sleepless in Seattle? Not Mayor Jenny Durkan.
As violent unrest gripped the city, armed Antifa-linked warlords threatened to hold hostage the municipal government with a list of 19 demands that include Durkan’s firing and the complete defunding of local law enforcement.
But the liberal mayor insisted all was well.
Although the radical protesters on Tuesday hijacked a six-block section of downtown Seattle and named it the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, Durkan said she had no immediate plans to restore order.
During an interview with CNN on Thursday, she dismissed reports that protesters within the “CHAZ” were extorting businesses and threatening other residents, despite video evidence to the contrary.
And when asked how long Seattle would allow the protesters to occupy the CHAZ, Durkan refused to say whether the protesters would be kicked out at all.
“I don’t know,” Durkan responded. “We could have a summer of love!”
She then doubled down and insisted that the CHAZ is a “peaceful expression of our community’s collective grief.”
The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone #CHAZ is not a lawless wasteland of anarchist insurrection – it is a peaceful expression of our community’s collective grief and their desire to build a better world. Given his track record, it’s not hard to believe that Trump is wrong, yet again.
— Mayor Jenny Durkan (@MayorJenny) June 11, 2020
Meanwhile, reporter Andy Ngo has documented the lawless behavior of many protesters within the autonomous zone, telling Fox News on Thursday, “It is hard for me to overstate the anarchy that is on the streets.”
Ngo said there are armed protesters acting as security, as well as border checkpoints requiring residents to show ID. Businesses in the zone are on their own, he said, and police officers have reported an alarming increase in 911 calls over the past few days.
“It is complete anarchy, because the police precinct has been boarded up, the police have abandoned it,” he said.
Following the lead of leftists like Durkan and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, those in the mainstream media who haven’t entirely ignored the story continue to portray the CHAZ as a peaceful “experiment in life without the police.”
The zone is “part street festival, part commune,” wrote the New York Times. “Hundreds have gathered to hear speeches, poetry, and music,” and “children made chalk drawings in the street,” the Times said.
Durkan, thus far, has maintained that the city will find a compromise with the protesters. That seems unlikely, since the protesters are demanding the total abolition of law enforcement as well as her resignation.
She has refused to step down, however, and has deflected responsibility to the Seattle Police Department, which was forced to evacuate its precinct during the height of the protests.
After city leaders demanded that police stop using “chemical weapons” such as tear gas, protesters threw rocks and “improvised explosives” at officers to force them out of the precinct, according to Police Chief Carmen Best. At least 25 cops were injured.
Best insisted that it was not his idea to abandon the police station. Notably, council member Kshama Sawant used her own keys to allow the protesters into city hall and gave delivered a speech to the group earlier in the week.
According to reporting by the conservative National File, warlord chieftain Raz Simone has said he is now in complete control and speaks each morning with the mayor’s office.
Still, Durkan refuses to admit that she has a problem on her hands, refuting President Donald Trump’s accusation that she is allowing “domestic terrorists” to run her city.
“It’s simply not true. Lawfully gathering and expressing First Amendment rights, demanding we do better as a society, and providing true equity for communities of color is not terrorism,” she said earlier this week. “It’s patriotism.”
Trump has made it clear that if Durkan doesn’t restore order, he will.
“If there were more toughness, you wouldn’t have the kind of devastation that you had in Minneapolis and in Seattle,” Trump told Fox News on Thursday.
“I mean, let’s see what’s going on in Seattle,” he continued. “I will tell you, if they don’t straighten that situation out, we’re going to straighten it out.”
Liberty Headlines’ Ben Sellers contributed to this report.