(Image: Alex Garland/CHS)
With reporting by Hannah Saunders
Seattle Police moved on counter-protesters at a fundamentalist Christian group’s rally Saturday afternoon in Cal Anderson Park. Multiple arrests and injuries were reported.
Groups were in the park to protest against a provocative rally organized by a Spokane fundamentalist church. CHS reported here on the planned “#DontMessWithOurKids” rally.
The clash with police came hours into the gathering as a phalanx of bicycle police moved into position near the front of a large crowd of counter-protesters near the rally stage and suddenly advanced on the crowd using their bikes and batons.
SPD said officers were being targeted by objects they say were being thrown by the protesters as the department reported the arrests in the park via social media. Protesters had also reportedly popped a balloon at the church group’s rally in the moments before the melee.
Counter-protesters told CHS they were at the park Saturday to defend LGBTQ and reproductive rights.
UPDATE 3:58 PM: Clashes have continued in the park with police deploying pepper spray on protesters. SPD reports additional arrests amid thrown objects and reports of toppled fencing around the event.
UPDATE 6:04 PM: Seattle Police have requested “mutual aid” and have been joined by the Washington State Patrol in the park as the rally has continued and protests have continued around it. New rules passed earlier this year by the city council require outside agencies like WSP to follow SPD’s command in crowd control situations.
Rally organizers have been passing around buckets requesting donations from attendees.
UPDATE 7:20 PM: Seattle’s mayor has taken the unusual step of putting out a statement on the day’s police activity lauding free speech — and blaming unrest in the crowd on “anarchists” who the mayor says “infiltrated the counter-protestors group.”
“I am grateful for those who make their voices heard in support of our neighbors without resorting to violence,” Harrell said in the statement. “In the face of an extreme right-wing national effort to attack our trans and LGBTQ+ communities, Seattle will continue to stand unwavering in our embrace of diversity, love for our neighbors, and commitment to justice and fairness.”
In the statement, Harrell said police asked rally organizers to end the event early because of the conflict “which they did.”
The permits for the rally event are also being scrutinized, Harrell said Saturday night. The mayor says he has asked the parks department to “review all of the circumstances of this application to understand whether there were legal location alternatives or other adjustments that could have been pursued.”
New Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes is not mentioned in the statement. Coming to Seattle following his leadership of the Madison, Wisconsin police department, the first major crowd control response by his officers echoed with the heavy handed and violent actions seen in the city from the department’s flawed response to the 2020 protests. Saturday’s arrests also follow Barnes’s back pedaling over directed patrols targeting nude sunbathers at Denny Blaine Park.
Harrell’s full statement is below:
“Seattle is proud of our reputation as a welcoming, inclusive city for LGBTQ+ communities, and we stand with our trans neighbors when they face bigotry and injustice. Today’s far-right rally was held here for this very reason – to provoke a reaction by promoting beliefs that are inherently opposed to our city’s values, in the heart of Seattle’s most prominent LGBTQ+ neighborhood.
“When the humanity of trans people and those who have been historically marginalized is questioned, we triumph by demonstrating our values through our words and peaceful protest – we lose our voice when this is disrupted by violence, chaos, and confusion.
“Anarchists infiltrated the counter-protestors group and inspired violence, prompting SPD to make arrests and ask organizers to shut down the event early, which they did.
“While there are broad First Amendment requirements around permitting events under free speech protections, I am directing the Parks Department to review all of the circumstances of this application to understand whether there were legal location alternatives or other adjustments that could have been pursued. The Police Department will complete an after-action report of this event, including understanding preparation, crowd management tactics, and review of arrests and citations.
“I am grateful for those who make their voices heard in support of our neighbors without resorting to violence. In the face of an extreme right-wing national effort to attack our trans and LGBTQ+ communities, Seattle will continue to stand unwavering in our embrace of diversity, love for our neighbors, and commitment to justice and fairness.”
UPDATE 5/25/2025 10:03 AM: SPD reports 22 people were arrested Saturday for assault and obstruction and says one officer was treated and released from the hospital for injuries sustained during the response. A juvenile was also arrested and booked for obstruction, SPD says.
The Seattle Parks and Recreation Department confirmed the permit earlier this year, disregarding the LGBTQ+ legacy of Cal Anderson Park and Capitol Hill. May Day USA organizers told CHS the group had flown into Seattle to educate the community on child human trafficking, but what they neglected to say is that it is pro-nuclear family and views Transgender people as mentally ill. Kian (who declined to provide his full name), but said he was South African, said the group was spreading the “name of Jesus and the gospel of Jesus Christ” in addition to child human trafficking.
“We really just want to love people. We’re not about any hate against anyone. Come as you are is the message of the gospel,” Kian said.
May Day USA closed its free haircuts for kids tent, but carried on its side of festivities through Jesus rock music, prayers, and anti-trans speeches.
UPDATE 5/26/2025 7:50 AM: Harrell’s leading challenger in the race to keep the mayor’s office in this year’s election has sounded off on the incumbent’s handling of the situation.
“The mayor’s primary job is to keep people safe, and that means taking action to prevent dangerous situations & violence before it starts,” political organizer and mayoral candidate Katie Wilson posted on social media Monday morning. “A fundamentalist, anti-trans ‘family values’ protest never should have been permitted in the heart of Seattle’s historic LGBTQ neighborhood.”
In the statement, Wilson also took the mayor’s office for task for having no representative on hand at the event.
“We have so many years of experience with demonstrations in Seattle, there’s no excuse,” Wilson writes. “We can do better.”
The Seattle police union is also ripping into Harrell as it continues its long-running campaign to increase spending on hiring and retention at the department and loosen oversight even after it successfully secured a lucrative new contract last year.
“SPOG welcomes a mayoral review of yesterday’s Seattle Parks Department’s decision to allow a demonstration permit for families who wanted to exercise their 1st amendment rights at Cal Anderson Park,” the Seattle Police Officers Guild statement reads. “What we are struggling to understand is, why was this park chosen and authorized, especially when this park is commonly known as the heart of ANTIFA land.”
“We have no doubt that this city decision, as naïve or deliberate as it was, put police officers in an untenable predicament,” the SPOG statement continues. “Whether it’s our job or not, we were once again ordered to put ourselves into a political quagmire. SPOG understands we will once again get blamed, and more calls will be heard for more accountability. This is Seattle’s public safety political reality.”
In the long statement, SPOG goes on to claim SPD does not have “the proper staffing to handle any more of these demonstrations that turn into mass arrests” and complains Seattle “lacks the political will” to “allow police to use the necessary tools to hold back criminal mobs to protect life and property.”
Meanwhile, a Seattle-based Christian group is organizing a rally Tuesday at Seattle City Hall to protest Harrell’s statements following Saturday’s arrests in which the mayor called the Christian event in the park a “right-wing” gathering. Organizers from Pursuit NW, a charismatic Christian church with locations including the University District, are calling on supporters to rally Tuesday evening outside city hall to demand Harrell apologize — or resign.
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There was nothing I saw directed at police. There were a couple water balloons thrown by the counter protesters at the fascists. Total overreaction by SPD.
And we just gave them a raise too.
Things can happen even if you didn’t see them. Luckily police have body cameras so if they’re telling the truth about this one the video will show it.
IF the body cams were on and functioning properly, that is…
If they threw balloons, maybe don’t do that next time. It makes the anti side look stupid.
Water balloons and other liquid devices should never be used that way. Since police don’t know what’s in them, of course they’re going to assume the worst (flammable?!) and respond accordingly.
The most effective way to protest a purportedly religious, family-focused event such as this is probably to just quietly hold signs. No fun, I know.
Effective in what capacity and to what extent? One of the major ironies of all this jawboning is that people who protest/counter are doing so according to their own theory of politics so that…
A. Liberals think an effective protest is just being visible period and that anything that follows and flows from that should wind up in a ballot box. Highly speculative to the point of just being a half ass wish with several leaps and assumptions about others, when it’s just ‘be the light you want to see in the world’, same as any other partisan. I’m dubious just because any protest that ever won anything wasn’t singular and was routinely attacked by all comers and even people who ostensibly supported the goals, and it was forcing electoral hands in The State that didn’t start off supportive and weren’t seated to be supportive. LBJ wasn’t some antiracist radical bolt-on to the Kennedy ticket to shore up the inner city votes, quite the fucking opposite.
B. Communists (State oriented) think an effective protest is recruiting off of it. See PSL/FSRO/etc etc throwing their hat in and trying to be at the forefront and routinely barfing on themselves and never really gaining and holding numbers around inflection. But they’ll keep trying to be the vanguard party that ushers in a revolution, and I don’t see it.
C. Anarchists (Many Antifascists) think an effective protest is making it so the opposing side doesn’t want to protest or fight them and stand down, through direct inflection and dishing out more than they take. It doesn’t happen nearly often enough that way because there’s not that many inflections, practice, and all their adversaries are paid or ideologically driven as they are. The idea is that if you impose a cost on chuds, they will wind themselves down to avoid more costs, if you impose a cost on cops they will not be eager to be on riot line for months even with banking OT. In this case, that clearly didn’t happen and in general it doesn’t but there are cases where chuds will drop out of the scene of active fascist partisan shit if they don’t want to keep having to hand fight antifascists. Cops do retire when retiring is good and they’re done dealing with 5 foot nothing queers who aren’t giving up even if its going real shitty.
And to sum it all up, of course nothing is effective if we’re measuring it on taking and holding change for the better – almost anyone in their 40s and a Liberal pulse can tell you their votes since 2000 weren’t consequentially effective out here, many protest events and movements have come and gone without effect, doing nothing is also quite ineffective.
So what I’m getting at is what you do when there’s no silver bullets, and how do you even attempt to measure objective fulfillment at this point?
You. I like you; you get it.
Perhpas you should take a look at the video again. There was zero physical violence from the people at the Christian Rally. It all came from the surrounding protestors.
Historical note: Fascists have been against religions of all sorts. If that’s the litmus test for fascism…
“Fascists have been against religions of all sorts.” That’s a big swing and a miss. Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, Franco’s Fascist Spain…
More clownfoolery from clown PD. Not to mention the city that granted these eastern WA wackos a permit in the first place. Hello, McFly like that was a good idea.
Who is running this city? Barnum & Bailey?
Exactly. I mean, I do think there were many things our counter protesters could have done so much better, like committing to non-violence and letting Unitarian/Lutheran groups lead the counter protests. That way, when cops decided to escalate, the visuals would have been of them attacking religious groups. Also, I would have met them with signs with quotes from their own Bible pointing out the hypocrisy of their movement. As it stands, unfortunately, it seems like they gave them the fodder they wanted in order to recruit people to their movement.
“Also, I would have met them with signs with quotes from their own Bible pointing out the hypocrisy of their movement.”
So why didn’t you? Where were you? Where were the Unitarians and Lutherans?
There were plenty of protesters carrying signs quoting the bible and pointing out religious hypocrisy. I spoke to some nice United Methodists who were hanging out with a Catholic priest, and I saw more than one witch, but no Unitarians or Lutherans. I suppose if they had showed up you’d be demanding Buddhists and Sufis.
This was a nonviolent protest until SPD escalated.
I wasn’t there because the best way to deal with these people is to starve them of the attention they crave. They use confrontation as recruitment tools. You knew the police would help them do so, because they always do.
The fact is, they weren’t going to recruit people in the neighborhood, so let them have their hissy fit and move on. If no one showed up, they wouldn’t have videos to show everyone making themselves look like the victims of an angry leftist, anti-free speech mob. Now they do, so the protesters and police helped them achieve their goal.
Right on!
No one show up? So drive us out of the park we would normally be in on one of the rare Seattle sunny days we have to endure all the terrible winter ones just to enjoy in our own park? While they blast music that sucks and talk about going to war after anti-lesbian speeches on the land that celebrates on of our icons?
Nah, I’m a bit sick of this idea that we should be driven off our own public land as residents of Seattle. We wanted to party there on a nice day, too. They could’ve been pro-Jesus without hate speech just like the few brave trans individuals who peacefully joined their worship (with trans flags AND a sign that said “We love Jesus too”), as they too were Christians, to attempt to talk through differences.
A lot the punk kids just wanted their park, too. The actual kids. Comparatively few minors were actually on their side. The main speakers consistently used his child as a prop – what they often complain we do even though most of the minors at the counter protest came of their own volition – due to being in the LGBT community themselves. The bands performing often perform in this park and shouldn’t need to leave due to this group’s hate speech. So of course, many adults who live here showed up to ensure would get to safely party on the other side of the field – simply protesting with dancing and rocking out. Many signs were simply telling trans children they would be the adults that ensure this is a safe place.
There were plenty of peaceful protestors. Including some of the innocent bystanders police harmed.
I was there because I would have been there on any beautiful Saturday. Some people stick around for their only home and don’t flee it because some out-of-towners come to scare people talking about gearing up for “war”. Some people just showed up to their regular park that day were straight up appalled by what they saw being done in it. Many who weren’t aware of what was happening already said “this feels like an invasion.”
That’s why my first comment was if you show up, you need to be tactical. These photos of police cracking down on what Middle Americans will see as Antifa punks dressed all in black with weird hair? That’s exactly what the religious group wanted to capture.
Or, you know, just keep doing what you’re doing because it’s just fun, and continue to lose the messaging war, as evidenced by our country quickly going backwards.
Maggie, is the messaging war where Democrats constantly try to beat the charges they’re far left pinko commies by buttressing the police apparatus, and fail, still getting lumped in with far left pinko commies…who don’t even vote?