What July 25th, 2020 looked like on Capitol Hill
A panel representing community, Seattle Police, and neighborhood businesses and organizations analyzing the 2020 protests in Seattle and the flawed police response to the waves of demonstrations and unrest that embroiled the city and made Capitol Hill a flashpoint in the Black Lives Matter and police reform movements has concluded its work with a call for city leaders to issue “a sincere, public apology.”
“Panelists agreed on the importance of rebuilding trust and understanding between community and police to discourage the othering and dehumanization of each group by the other,” the report reads. “Of particular importance was emphasizing differentiation of crowd members and avoiding assumptions about crowds as monoliths, especially where this created unwarranted defensiveness and fear in SPD.”
The final report from the Office of Inspector General for Public Safety-led group was issued last week and concludes a multi-year examination that broke the protest periods into four waves starting with the initial flash as the city joined with protests around the country over the police killing of George Floyd.
While the previous reports focused on the establishment of the occupied protest area on Capitol Hill and the abandonment of the East Precinct, the new report looks at how the police response changed after the East Precinct was “reestablished” and covers three key dates of protest and police response in the period from July 3rd to October, 2020:
- On July 25th, SPD reported 140 uses of force during the 11-hour protest as police and protestors pushed back and forth along Pine Street.
- On September 7th, SPD pushed protestors from the SPOG headquarters on 4th Avenue South to Judkins Park, a 90-minute interaction resulting in 56 reported uses of force by SPD.
- On September 23rd, SPD reported 45 uses of force during the four-hour protest as police pushed protestors away from the East Precinct.
The conclusions? Seattle Police made the same mistakes in its heavy-handed, overly dangerous crowd control strategies and response with communication failures playing what the panel said were especially large parts in the damaging events as protesters fought back and set fires in solidarity with crackdowns in Portland.
The previous third report was issued in October covering the period of June 8th to July 2nd, 2020 when then-Mayor Jenny Durkan and Chief Carmen Best ordered the CHOP occupied protest area around the East Precinct cleared.
The “Wave 3” report continued the themes of earlier analysis showing an overwhelmed Seattle Police Department hobbled by chain of command issues and antagonistic and dangerous crowd control strategies, documenting a cloud of “deception,” “intentional manipulation of protestor fear,” and irresponsible acts from the mayor down to SPD that eroded trust and made it nearly impossible for the city to effectively communicate with protesters. The panel’s report said acts of mistrust set the stage for critical communication errors by the city and mistrust by the community and protesters that contributed to the violent and dangerous conditions that developed around the protest area, leading to deadly shootings, and the July police sweep that ended the protest camp, burying important issues around race and equity that remain unaddressed.
“Lying to the community in this way was not only contrary to policy, but it was also a poorly considered tactic contributing to the tensions,” the third report concluded.
- Wave 1 (May 29 – June 1), comprises the period from the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis to the first set of demonstrations in Seattle, mainly in Downtown Seattle. CHS report
- Wave 2 (June 2 – June 7) includes events that occurred before the leaving of the East Precinct by SPD. During this period, the main demonstrations and confrontations shifted from Downtown to the East Precinct. CHS report
- Wave 3 (June 8 – July 2) includes events that occurred during the existence of the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) and Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ).
- Wave 4 (July 3 – Oct 6) includes events after the East Precinct was reestablished.
- Wave 5 (Oct 6 to the end of 2020) includes events after the creation by SPD Interim Chief of Police Adrian Diaz of the Community Response Group, tasked specifically with responding to demonstrations, among other things.
The new “Wave 4” effort wraps up the analysis with a smaller scale report in which fewer panelists participated and the final scope of the effort was sliced back.
In the new report, the panel says it has decided it will not continue with the previously planned “Wave 5” analysis looking at the transition of the protests and demonstrations starting late in 2020 and continuing into 2021 to be more fully dominated by anti-police efforts beyond the original Black Lives Matter impetus.
(Images: Tom Walsh @twalsh875 with permission to CHS)
The panel included Seattle Police representatives including Assistant Chief Eric Barden and SPD chief operating officer Brian Maxey. From Capitol HIll, Tracy Taylor from Elliott Bay Book Company and Big Little News represented the neighborhood and business communities along with Donna Moodie from the Capitol Hill EcoDistrict.
The Wave 4 report comes as Seattle Police and the city are preparing to finally unwind federal oversight of the department over use of force and bias issues as officials say years of reform have worked to improve policing in the city.
As for that “sincere, public apology,” it is unclear how Seattle Police might address the recommendation.
The full Wave 4 report including a summary and conclusion the multi-wave process is below.
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Always find it silly when CHOP is blamed on activists as crime sky rockets before and after CHOP’s existence and out side of CHOP’s area too. It’s always a convenient go-to for people to bring up the shooting when the cops are the 100% blame for all of this.
I’d like an apology from the protesters that were blocking streets with assault rifles for 3 weeks.
So when leftists exercise their right to bear arms it’s a problem. But not when Proud Boys do it and are high fived by the cops?
If the Proud Boys had set up an “autonomous zone” in the heart of Seattle, Jay Inslee would have called in the National Guard lmao
the national guard was called-in…they were stationed at volunteer park
Who said it is fine when Proud Boys do it? Virtually nobody in the neighborhood supports the Proud Boys. It is a problem when zealots from either extreme of the political spectrum take over a neighborhood with assault rifles for a month. The residents deserve an apology from the police, Mayor Durkan, city council, governor and the extremists that occupied and trashed the neighborhood. There is plenty of blame to go around. What happened here was not okay. It should be remembered as a cautionary tale so it never happens again. F*ck CHOP.
Lol nobody blocked anything for 3 weeks.
If anything it was SPD for such a lack of planning. This would t have happened if cops had brains. They train in a few months and then shoot to kill and gas our whole community. They’re all morons who are just here for a check. None of them even live in our community.
“They’re all morons”
Talk about stereotyping! Sure, there are some bad apples in the police force, but most of them are professionals who are just trying to do a good job in often-trying circumstances. Your hatred of the police is unfortunate and unfair.
I live in this community and no one gassed me. But then again, I wasn’t there on the front lines throwing stuff at the cops and calling black police officers “Uncle Tom”.
my apartment had gas fumes and me and my kids were definitely impacted. None of us threw anything at the cops :(
tell me you weren’t there without telling me you weren’t there
I live inside the boundaries of CHAZ/CHOP and what SPD called the “red zone”. Protesters never blocked my way. Police did. When SPD forcefully cleared things out in July, they put up a checkpoint at the border, and I had to identify myself to them in order to access my own home.
They sure did! And they prevented many residents from accessing the park while allowing some others to freely enter it when it was supposedly ‘closed’. SPD threatened many residents while we were just trying to go on about our business. The protesters never really bothered us.
It is difficult to imagine how the SPD could present an apology which anyone would believe.
Disbanding SPOG might be a good start.
FR! Solan needs to be completely banned from Seattle.
Good summary of some of the systematic failures here. We can all appreciate that this was an unprecedented situation but SPD’s response to it was just poor in nearly every way, from actual tactics (brutal and arbitrary) to communication (lots of lies and misrepresentations) to after the fact response (defensive and obstructive). It was a complex situation but that doesn’t excuse their repeated and avoidable failures.
The argument of “asking for permission or forgiveness” is not a question of one or the other. It’s both. It’s not a question, but the answer. We deserve an apology and asked permission. Permission implies inclusion, and participation. Permission is something that is asked for. We aren’t asked, as that’s not part of your playbook. Forgiveness is something that is earned over time, through action (or inaction). Not words. You haven’t earned our forgiveness either. If actions speak louder than words, your actions are saying “militarize”, “force”, “strength”, and “power”. These words are hardly new or original, but I would argue they are incompatible with words like permission or forgiveness. Defunding the police is not the answer. Accountability and working together, is.
And they’ll do it all again. Get back to work people, nothing to see here.