Wednesday, March 15, 2017 - 12:29 PM

Standoff at 24th and Spring in eviction of longtime Central District activist

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A longtime Central District resident whose activism for Black rights has often put him at odds with law enforcement and the legal system sparked a protest and a standoff Wednesday morning at 24th and Spring as the King County Sheriff, Seattle Police, and a work crew arrived to evict him and his UMOJA Peace Center from the Midtown Center block.

Omari Tahir-Garrett, who is in his 70s, was reportedly barricaded inside the house where he has lived for around a decade while working as a caretaker for the property owned by the Bangasser family who is now trying to sell the land for long-awaited redevelopment. UPDATE 2:15 PM: Authorities have determined that Tahir-Garrett is not inside the house. A protest organizer says Tahir-Garrett is “safe” and not in custody.

UPDATE 3/16/2017 8:53 AM: Police say they responded to the corner Thursday morning to help “a man trapped inside a boarded house.” We’re checking to find out more. According to police radio dispatches, SPD officers entered the house around 8 AM after being called to the scene to a report of somebody trapped inside. The person was “removed from the property” around 15 minutes later.

DSC01265UPDATE 3/16/17 2:15 PM: In an appearance outside his boarded house and flanked by City Council member Kshama Sawant, Omari Tahir-Garrett and organizers of the two days of protests against his eviction at 24th and Spring said they will rally again on Saturday for inclusive development with a march starting at 23rd and Union.

“We contend that this Omari’s block,” organizer Cliff Cawthon said. “Yesterday, we had dozens of people come out with only a few minutes later to defend this place because of what this means.”

Tahir-Garrett described the moment police arrived Thursday morning as a surprise show of force to remove him from the house.

“Get your hands off me. I’m old enough to be your granddad. You don’t have respect for your elders”

“That made me so sick. I just vomited down there,” Tahir-Garrett said.

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The 70-year-old said he was able to hide inside the house as it was boarded up Wednesday thanks to his military training when a Sheriff K-9 unit searched the house. He also announced his plans to again run for city council — but he said he didn’t want to challenge Sawant in his home District 3.

Tom Bangasser, who was removed as head of the family partnership that owns the Midtown Center block and is embroiled in a battle with family members over the planned sale of the property, spoke of his long friendship and respect for Tahir-Garrett’s role in the neighborhood. He said the future of Midtown Center must involve change and development but with Africatown as an owner. “It doesn’t mean we put a big grocery store in here because somebody else wants a grocery store,” Bangasser said. “We put in what the community wants. The neighborhood is going to change but the ownership needs to remain with this community.”

“Yesterday, they showed the brutality of what gentrification really is. And even as I stand here today, it’s heartbreaking, it is disgusting, but also it is inspiring to see Omari stand strong,” Cawthon said.

WEDNESDAY COVERAGE: 

An afternoon arrest
A standoff over Tahir-Garrett’s car was resolved when a protest organizer was allowed to drive it from the property for safe storage
But after the car’s removal, police forced an opening for a truck to drop off another bin to be filled with materials removed from the property
Protesters formed a temporary chain but dispersed quickly when threatened with arrest

UPDATE 3:45 PM: There was one arrest and a series of tussles between police and protesters as both the protest and the work effort to clear the property dragged into the afternoon. East Precinct commander Capt. Paul McDonagh was at the scene and told CHS the King County Sheriff’s eviction was complete and SPD units were at the property to “ensure the peace.” In the arrest, a protester who had been at the house since crowds first formed Wednesday morning and who had been moved by officers multiple times through the day was taken into custody after police cleared 24th Ave to make way for a truck to drop a large bin on the property for workers to fill with trash and materials. Following the arrest, a backhoe began tearing into the house to remove elements around the windows to allow workers to board up the structure and block access after possessions were removed from inside. Some of Tahir-Garrett’s things were piled into a car on the property that police allowed a protest organizer to drive from the scene, diffusing one of a series of standoffs with the crowd through the day. UPDATE 9:00 PM: Only a small group of protesters remained on the block around 8:30 PM. One person said police had left around an hour earlier. The house’s windows and doors have been boarded shut and the property is mostly surrounded by chain-link fence. Organizers had not publicly announced any further actions planned in coming days at the property as of Wednesday night.

Members of the Bangasser family look on from behind the newly erected fence
SPD on hand to keep property cleared as the house was boarded up
One attempt to remove a protester stopped quickly when a crowd arrived, cameras in tow

UPDATE 3/16/17 11:34 AM: Photographer Noah Lubin monitored Wednesday’s protests and shared these pictures from a clash between protesters and police later in the day:

District 3 representative Kshama Sawant called for a halt to the eviction. She cast the eviction in the light of Seattle’s stance as a sanctuary city. “In order to truly turn Seattle into a sanctuary, politicians need to actively work to fulfill the housing, education, health care, and cultural rights of our communities,” Sawant said. Her full statement is below.

Earlier this month, eviction papers were served at the house after a long running legal fight over the property he has lived in at 24th and Spring on the backside of the Midtown Center block. Tahir-Garrett and his UMOJA Peace Center were ordered by a King County Superior Court judge to leave the property in eviction proceedings that included Tahir-Garrett being jailed after repeated courtroom outbursts. A March 4th Black Lives Matter protest march included a stop in front of the 24th and Spring house to rally support.

Cliff Cawthon, an activist helping to organize a protest of a few dozen people outside the property Wednesday morning said he had not been able to speak to Tahir-Garrett but that he was inside the house despite the arrival of the Sheriff and a department K-9 unit that searched the residence.

Work crews were on hand to install large wire fencing around the property while a crew of contractors, Bangasser family members, and people who told CHS they were friends of the family worked to clean the property of piles of possessions and refuse that had collected on the lot that has also served as a homeless encampment. Work on the clean-up proceeded briskly but the project to erect a fence was taking a little longer as protesters placed themselves in the way of workers until police officers on scene would move in and clear the small crowd back. The activists and protesters chanted against the police activities and the county’s effort to evict Tahir-Garrett from his longtime home despite the court ruling that he must vacate the property.

The eviction comes as Tahir-Garrett’s son K. Wyking Garrett is also facing the eviction of the Black Dot work space and business incubator that is supported by his Africatown community organization. Wednesday, Wyking Garrett sent a message to media saying the locks have been changed at the facility in the middle of the 23rd and Union Midtown Center just around the block from the 24th and Spring protest. The dispute clouds efforts for Africatown and conservation investor Forterra to partner on a bid to purchase the Midtown Center block for a mixed-use project based in what the groups call inclusive development principles. People familiar with the situation say the lease for Black Dot was ended last month when another partner organization that held the contract decided not to remain as a tenant.

Black Dot dispute clouds future of Africatown ‘inclusive development’ at 23rd and Union

For Omari Tahir-Garrett, the standoff follows months of legal disputes with the Bangassers after his role with the family partnership changed with the removal of Tom Bangasser as director of the company managing Midtown. It also is part of a lifetime of activism for Tahir-Garrett that has frequently put him in conflict with law enforcement including when the  activist and slavery reparations advocate assaulted former Mayor Paul Schell with a bullhorn in response to the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man. We talked with him about his activism in 2015 as he launched a campaign for City Council. In 1985, Tahir-Garrett was part of a group that occupied a Seattle school to advocate for an African-focused museum in the Central District. His efforts eventually lead to the creation of the Northwest African American Museum. It wouldn’t be the last time Tahir-Garrett made headlines through occupying a school building. In 2013, Tahir-Garrett was part of a group that occupied the Horace Mann building in hopes of establishing a permanent home for the Africatown Center for Education and Innovation, an organization founded by Tahir-Garrett’s son Wyking. Both men also help found the Umoja P.E.A.C.E. Center at 23rd and Spring. More recently, Tahir-Garrett lead an unsuccessful fight to preserve the the Liberty Bank building at 24th and Union. He also opposed the opening of Uncle Ike’s pot shop in the neighborhood. “If you want to have peace in a community, you need to have a community center,” he told CHS in 2015.

UPDATE: Here is the judge’s order in the case against Omari Tahir-Garrett:

 

 



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