Tag Archives: east precinct

The Ann Davison way takes hold in Seattle: City Attorney talks more aggressive approach to Seattle’s low level crime at East Precinct community meeting

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Ann Davison’s plan is taking hold in Seattle. She appeared at an East Precinct community meeting last week.

The Ann Davison way is taking hold in Seattle’s approach to curbing day to day street crimes and low level misdemeanors. Last week, the still new Seattle City Attorney took part in a Central District and Capitol Hill community and public safety meeting to talk about her latest efforts.

Monday, the city’s municipal court judges who hear the lower level cases the new Seattle City Attorney’s office prosecutes agreed to a plan that will put the most chronic offenders in jail, not a community diversion program.

Responding to the proposal from her office, the court’s judges have signed onto Davison’s “High Utilizer” plan and agreed to exclude the most frequent repeat offenders from Seattle’s community court program which can provide a path for charges to be dropped if an offender participates in programs including housing and employment services, and drug treatment. Continue reading →

‘Capitol Hill Community Center’ — Times reports on Seattle’s short-lived plan to transfer the East Precinct before CHOP formed

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June 13th, 2020 (Image: CHS)

In late June of 2020, the few local media including CHS on the ground at the CHOP occupied protest around Cal Anderson and the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct at 12th and Pine reported on a Friday night meeting in the middle of the demonstrations held at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church and attended by activists, city officials, and then Mayor Jenny Durkan.

Included in the talks as officials discussed addressing demands over equity and police brutality in the wake of the George Floyd murder were ideas around the future of the East Precinct building itself. Five days later, Seattle Police would raid and clear chop under order from Durkan.

New reporting by the Seattle Times shows that the city was already considering options for the East Precinct weeks earlier before the CHOP camps formed that included handing over the building to Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County, an advocacy group that formed during the unrest of 2020 and presented the city with a roster of demands hoped to help quiet the streets after a week of heavy protest in Seattle in early June 2020. Though BLMSKC was not directly involved in organizing the largest protests that week, many activists were also calling for creating a “Capitol Hill Community Center” in the building with mutual aid, health, and care resources. Continue reading →

East Precinct removes ‘temporary’ security fence that followed CHOP fortress wall

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(Image: CheeToS_)

As new panes of safety glass are being installed, the last vestiges of the Seattle Police Department’s efforts to wall off and fortify the East Precinct during months of protest have come down — for now, at least.

SPD public information could not confirm if the removal over the last few weeks of work would be permanent but the tall security fences outside the 12th and Pine facility have been dismantled and carted away.

CHS reported in May on the installation of the fence that replaced the large cement barrier wall SPD had built around the facility in the summer of 2020 as anti-police protests continued after months of massive Black Lives Matter demonstrations and rallies in the city including the nearby CHOP occupied protest camp. Continue reading →

KUOW report puts blame for East Precinct abandonment on assistant chief

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Assistant Chief Tom Mahaffey (Image: SPD)

KUOW has finally ended months of uncertainty around the decision for Seattle Police to abandon the East Precinct building at 12th and Pine and open the way for the formation of CHOP.

It turns out, the answer brings more questions as we await the results of the Office of Police Accountability’s investigation into SPD’s withdrawal.

In a sprawling, 3,000-word report, Seattle’s National Public Radio member station reports “We know who made the call to leave Seattle Police’s East Precinct last summer, finally” and hangs the blame on Assistant Chief Tom Mahaffey and his worries about a possible arson attack: Continue reading →

For Seattle’s Chief of Police, blame in Capitol Hill protest ‘pink umbrella incident’ falls on demoted assistant chief — UPDATE: ‘Incident Action Plan’ for East Precinct evacuation

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Gas clouded Capitol Hill on June 1st, 2020 (Image: Matt Mitgang with permission to CHS)

Repercussions from decisions to deploy blast balls and gas on Capitol Hill protesters in the early days of last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle have landed on the head of a now former assistant police chief.

Seattle Police confirms that former Assistant Chief Steve Hirjak has been demoted following Chief Adrian Diaz’s Wednesday announcement of “staff change” at the department. Continue reading →

20-month sentence for arson that charred East Precinct, brought SPD’s big wall and security fence

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An image from SPD security video from the night of the August fire outside the East Precinct

A 20-year-old from Alaska has been sentenced to 20 months in prison for conspiracy to commit arson for a fire set outside Capitol Hill’s East Precinct last August. A week later, Seattle Police had walled off the building.

The sentencing comes as Seattle and the country approach the one year anniversary of the start of Black Lives Matter protests following the May 25th, 2020 police killing of George Floyd. That Friday, May 29th, protests began in Seattle as thousands marched and demonstrated, smashing windows at Capitol Hill’s Amazon grocery and Ferrari dealership, and clashing with police who made seven arrests.

The August arson fire followed weeks of protest and the formation and eventual police sweep of the occupied protest on Capitol Hill.

Desmond David-Pitts pleaded guilty to the federal charge earlier this year following his arrest for the August 2020 fire set outside the 12th and Pine building. Continue reading →

Seattle’s police accountability office said order to use blast balls and gas at Capitol Hill protest was a mistake — Its police chief just reversed the decision — UPDATE

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June 1, 2020 on Capitol Hill (Image: Matt Mitgang with permission to CHS)

Chief Adrian Diaz has overruled the findings of the city’s Office of Police Accountability and announced he will not discipline the officer who improperly ordered the deployment of crowd control tactics in “the pink umbrella incident” — the moment the night of June 1st that set off a riot on Capitol Hill as police reacted to a umbrella thrust over the barrier outside the East Precinct at 11th and Pine with a barrage of pepper spray and blast grenades that led to a night filled with clouds of tear gas throughout Pike/Pine and a major clash with protesters.

“Decisions were made at levels of command above the Named Employee that bore directly on the Named Employee’s actions and thus actions taken by officers in the field. As a simple matter of fairness, I cannot hold the Named Employee responsible for circumstances that were created at a higher level of command authority and for carrying out decisions made at a higher rank,” the interim chief wrote in his letter to Mayor Jenny Durkan and City Council President M. Lorena González explaining his decision to reverse the OPA finding.

The office had previously ruled that a complaint against the officer who gave the order should be sustained and that the decision to deploy the tactics was in error because “the large majority of the crowd was not acting violently at the time.” Continue reading →

‘Social cohesion,’ Seattle Police legitimacy top Capitol Hill, Central District concerns in crime survey

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Lack of police capacity, property crime, and homelessness are Seattleites’ top safety concerns, according to a new report, below, by Seattle University researchers. Meanwhile, in the East Precinct covering Capitol Hill and the Central District, fear of crime remained low while concerns about “social cohesion” and the legitimacy of the Seattle Police Department spiked.

The annual survey, released this month by the university’s criminal justice department, includes input from over 11,000 Seattle residents and gives a snapshot of what continues to worry them after a tumultuous 2020 that saw policing and racial justice at the top of the agenda locally and nationally. It also gives an idea of how residents of various neighborhoods feel about issues of public safety in their communities.

“Understanding the public-safety concerns of Seattleites is an important part of the ongoing discussion about the best path forward to support communities of color and to produce equitable outcomes for those who encounter the criminal justice system,” Seattle University researchers wrote in a November op-ed in the Seattle Times promoting the survey.

For example, in Capitol Hill, homelessness trumps police capacity — which includes worries about delays in police response and a lack of law enforcement personnel — followed by property crime. Continue reading →

Interim Seattle Police chief vows crackdown after months of ‘direct action’ protests targeting property damage and vandalism

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2021 began with more protest arrests on Capitol Hill (Image: CHS)

Seattle’s interim police chief called a press conference Saturday to announce “a new policy of arresting and prosecuting people who vandalize or damage property during protests,” KIRO TV reports — but the Seattle Times says it is not clear what has changed after Chief Adrian Diaz’s weekend announcement:

Holmes wasn’t at the news conference and in a statement, his office said misdemeanor policies are the same. No documents to outline any enforcement changes were immediately available. “We only learned about it after the fact,” Dan Nolte, a city attorney’s spokesperson, said regarding the hastily called news conference.

The Times reports Diaz told reporters “he has wanted to crack down on property destruction for months, and that in his opinion, violent protesters and vandals aren’t promoting a cause.”

Continue reading →

Plywood comes down as Seattle Police begins process of removing East Precinct wall and barriers — UPDATE — Mayor’s office: Wall expected down ‘in coming weeks’

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(Image: Alex Garland)

The reopening to the public of Capitol Hill’s East Precinct will apparently come piece by piece. This week, plywood is being removed from the Seattle Police Department’s precinct headquarters at 12th and Pine, the first time Seattle daylight has touched the glass since the summer days of CHOP and the Capitol Hill protest zone. The large cement wall and fencing barricading the facility and closing it off from the public remain.

A department spokesperson tells CHS the removal of the plywood “is part of a process underway” to fully reopen the precinct “when safe to do so.” Work is also underway to repair the glass and strengthen the windows.

There is no schedule for removing the wall. Continue reading →