The streets around East Precinct’s 12th and Pine headquarters were closed to traffic Tuesday as authorities prepared for a May Day of rallies and protests throughout Seattle.
At Seattle Central, a student walk-out was scheduled to begin after 11a.
Meanwhile, Occupy Seattle is rallying at Westlake Park in a revival of their efforts in the downtown public square.
Tonight, the annual May Day march will make its way from the Central District’s Judkins Park to downtown where a protest against Wells Fargo is planned.
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and SPD have issued warnings about possible public safety issues based on information posted online about groups traveling to Seattle to be part of protests. Stevens Elementary has canceled after school activities but school officials say that move is more about transportation worries than public safety concerns. Metro and the city have also issued warnings that Tuesday afternoon’s commute could be snarled by protests.
Reasons behind today’s protests vary by participating groups and individuals. For some, the annual May Day march is an opportunity to show solidarity with labor and immigrant groups. There is also the continuation of the Occupy effort to push back on Wall Street and big banking while others are focused on doing battle over police violence and concerns over eroding civil liberties.
UPDATE: According to people familiar with the warnings issued from City Hall there are no specific threats and authorities are preparing for a wide variety of situations.
The group gathering at Seattle Central currently numbers less than 100.
UPDATE: The crowd has grown to around 200 and is matching through the school before heading down Pine to Westlake to join the downtown rallies.
UPDATE: The SCCC group had joined the Westlake rally where hundreds are gathered.
UPDATE: The Westlake Crowd has taken the rally to the streets and a crowd with police estimates in the thousands is winding its way through downtown traffic.
UPDATE: Here’s the preliminary report from SPD on the day’s incidents.
“Black Bloc” Damages Cars, Business Downtown
Written by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee on
Update @ 8 pm: Following Mayor McGinn’s emergency order, officers seized about 70 items which could be used as weapons during today’s demonstrations, including sharpened tape-wrapped wooden stakes; metal poles; screw-topped wooden staffs; a shield made from a plastic traffic barrier; and a corrugated metal portable barrier with sharp, jagged edges. You can view a gallery of some of the items here:
6:30 pm: Officers have made two more arrests–a 30-year-old man for pedestrian interference, and a 20-year-old man for vandalism–bringing the total to eight.
5:30 pm: So far, officers have made six arrests at demonstrations this evening.
The most recent arrests came just after 5pm, when officers took a 24-year-old man, a 30-year-old woman, and 28-year-old man into custody for felony assault at 1st Avenue and Pike Street just after 5 pm. Preliminary information indicates the 30-year-old punched an officer, the 28-year-old grabbed an officer, and the 24-year-old spit on an officer.
4:45 pm: One additonal arrest near 1st Avenue and Pike Street. More details to come.
3:30 pm: Officers have seized homemade incendiary devices and bags of feces in downtown Seattle and made several arrests, after a group of men and women dressed all in black–known as a “Black Bloc”–used sticks, smoke bombs and improvised incendiary devices, rocks, paint, hammers, and tire irons to damage vehicles and businesses Tuesday afternoon.
Members of the “Black Bloc” broke windows at the Federal courthouse at 3rd Avenue and Marion, Bank of America at 5th Avenue and Olve Way, Wells Fargo Bank at 4th Avenue and Seneca, and Homestreet Bank at 6th and University. Niketown, American Apparel and multiple cars at 6th and Pike Street and 5th Avenue and Seneca.
As of 3 pm, officers had arrested a 23-year-old man at 6th and Union for vamdalism, and a 19-year-old man at 4th Avenue and Pike Street for carrying a fixed-blade knife.
In light of today’s events, Mayor Mike McGinn has also issued an emergency order giving officers the authority to seize anything that could be used as a weapon during today’s demonstrations.
If your property or business has been vandalized, please call SPD non-emergency line at 206 625-5011 or file a police report online.
We’ll post updates here and on our Twitter feed, @SeattlePD, as they’re available, and will provide updates on arrests every hour.
Sounds like a fun time for all }:>
Is there any credible information, or a statement from SPD about protest activity near the precinct? The last time they shut down 12th, nothing happened until much later in the day.
I can’t wait to be called a “sheeple” by someone blindly following someone else blindly following the lead of Adbusters magazine. We are the 99% (of Adbusters readership).
Getting home tonight is going to suck (via bus, and even walking)…..
I am completely cool with the immigration march. That happens every year. Let’s hope others act civilly and respect the people that they are supposedly standing up for. The 99% works too, Occupy. The 99% also likes to get home and make dinner. Please be respectful and if you see anyone not being respectful, say something. Interact with the police civilly and maybe even alert them to possible malicious people. This will help your cause both publically, and with the police.
Looks like I’ll be able to do a lot of reading today at least.
The mayor has cited the SPD’s intelligence and some graffiti. Good enough for you?
For you, I think “stoopid twat” is at least as descriptive as “sheeple.”
I don’t understand why people in support of this are completely hostile to people who don’t agree with this. That sort of action is completely counter intuitive. “We want people to believe what we believe and if they don’t believe what we believe then they are wrong wrong wrong!”
I’m sorry, just because you know how to say the word “uninformed,” that doesn’t mean you actually know it’s deifnition. When you are getting information from other people in your group and from literature that cites no sources, you are uninformed. When you don’t do your own research after reading and if you don’t follow multiple sources of varying biases, you are uninformed.
Sorry sorry sorry, but seriously, don’t be a jerk to people when you are claiming to be for the people. That’s what the original commenter was commenting on, and then you just proved him right.
It pisses me off every time they do this.
There are dangerous criminals on the way! Quick make every effort to keep them far away from the police station!! Push them into the neighborhood! A police station is no place for these people!
Just watched a handful of people attempt to break windows at Nike Town, and a swift macing and beatdown by 3x as many bike cops (via live aerial feed).
I don’t use this term often, but these guys in black breaking windows are serious pussyholes.
Pine is open around East Precinct.
After the months of “Occupation” and the 99% stuff, I still have no idea what these people are fighting for or against.
They usually just look like a bunch of hipster d#uches with too much time on their hands. Or hooligans just looking to cause trouble and break sh#t. Either way, they’re doing more harm than good.
Don’t they have some organic free range coffee to enjoy, or some super killer music that we’re not cool enough to know about? Misplaced priorities.
It was closed as of 11a. Possible it has re-opened but I haven’t verified.
Looks like you’ve got your mind completely made up after doing absolutely no research whatsoever. If you can’t find out in a general sense (specific policy is another story) of what the Occupy movement is for & against, you aren’t trying hard enough, or at all. But I guess you have enough information based on what they look like. Brilliant. I have a lot of issues with this movement as well but your post was just woefully ignorant.
Verified. My office is in that block, and when we left for lunch around 12:50pm, the barricades were gone.
…of the emergency order available? Does the ban apply to the city as a whole, or only areas of unrest?
Curious what this means for lawful concealed carriers, and those with legal pocket knives. Obviously one would be foolish to make a show of that near the violence, but what about tradespeople with boxcutters on their tool belts, who are working in those areas?
I’m waiting for the statement to be issued and will post in full when available
The Occupy people are confused too. They are totally unable to prevent their message (which most of us support) from being co-opted and eclipsed by worthless, childish “anarchists” who are really just intent on smashing things. Most of us support reining in greedy banks and preventing the kind of corporate abuse that totally trashed the economy. Most of us do NOT suport smashing windows to make the point.
Like it or not, fair or not, the Occupy movement needs to deal with the reality that many of the bodies they welcome into their protesters just for the sake of numbers, are neither consistent with their message, nor productive to have around.
The problem with some of these grassroots groups is that some of their members are (dick)weeds.
tax dollars wasted to rebuild the city and pay OT to all the cops. I also feel bad for all the business owners who own shops down there and all those affected by the commute.
that’s what I was verifying, shhheeezzz…
Thanks J.
Is it possible to get a copy of the proclamation which this document refers to?
Ah, got it:
http://www.seattle.gov/mayor/media/PDF/120501PR-proclamation
I completely agree.
While the message is great, I am APPALLED by the Idiots who went around destroying properties. That is disgusting and wrong. Somehow I have a feeling these Idiots are without jobs.
Too bad they didn’t get ran over. I would have been OK with that
Marriah would like everyone to know that when it comes to measuring crime against crimes; illegal foreclosures, robbing the tax payers blind, targeting poor people and gouging them with fees vs. breaking a window, the death penalty should be administered to the one who doesn’t have a job.