In ‘Morning After The Revolution,’ Nellie Bowles Can’t Pick A Side
Cancel culture pack leader Nellie Bowles' new persona is a 'hemming-and-hawing moderate' willing to poke fun at anyone.Cancel culture pack leader Nellie Bowles' new persona is a 'hemming-and-hawing moderate' willing to poke fun at anyone.Seattle Settles With 2020 BLM Rioters, Giving Them $10 Million Over ‘Excessive Force’ Claims
The city of Seattle, Washington will pay rioters who demonstrated in the name of "Black Lives Matter" $10 million.Seattle dismantles BLM garden after rampant homelessness, drug use create 'public health and ... safety issues'
The city of Seattle has dismantled the Black Lives Matter Memorial Garden after rampant homelessness and drug use overran the area, posing significant risks to the public.
In 2020, amid heightened racial tensions and anti-police fervor, Seattle activists established the garden in Cal Anderson Park, located in Capitol Hill, the home of the infamous former Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Organizers of the garden claimed it was intended to memorialize victims of police violence and to provide organic food for underserved communities.
However, seemingly from the beginning, the garden has been plagued by violence and filth, creating significant "public health and public safety issues" in the area, a statement from Seattle Parks and Recreation claimed. According to the statement, members of Seattle's Unified Care Team have conducted 76 tent encampment removals in just the past year alone "to keep public spaces clean, open, and accessible to all."
The garden has also become a hotspot for illicit drug use, creating other issues for area residents. Other problems in the garden include "vandalism of Cal Anderson public bathrooms" and an infestation of rodents, the statement said.
To alleviate these problems and to begin much-needed maintenance projects, such as "reseeding the area and turf restoration," the city decided to remove the garden entirely.
Early Wednesday morning, parks and rec officials and a team of Seattle police officers cordoned off the area and began removing the garden. Black Star Farmers, the group that has been entrusted with maintaining the garden for the past three years, briefly filmed the removal process and urged followers to "come to the garden now" and denounce "the violent destruction of this beautiful garden."
The parks and rec department defended the removal decision, calling the garden "temporary" and "makeshift" and insisting that officials had been "in frequent communication with community activists since 2020 offering alternative locations for a garden, both within Cal Anderson Park, as well as in other Seattle parks," to no avail. The department had intended to remove the garden back in October but delayed the move after receiving serious pushback from groups like Black Star Farmers.
While BSF has claimed that removing the garden is yet another example of "egregious exploitation" foisted on the world by American "neoliberal free trade policies and excessive militarism," according to the parks and rec statement, other so-called black activists claimed they didn't even know the garden existed and claimed that BSF had been "hijacking" the BLM "movement."
"I wasn’t aware that there was a garden in remembrance of victims of police use of deadly force, which makes me wonder if this garden is truly reflective of impacted families," said Katrina Johnson, a cousin of Charleena Lyles, the pregnant mother of four who was fatally shot by police in 2017.
"To make a garden without reaching out to families and even letting them know about it tells me that this is not about our loved ones but about folks hijacking the movement and trying to make a name for themselves off of our pain and that is simply not OK," she added.
Darrell Powell, the president of the Seattle/King County chapter of the NAACP, expressed similar sentiments. "The black community is unaware of the existence of the garden, and the garden does not represent in any meaningful sense the vast number of Black Lives extinguished by police violence," he said. He also characterized the garden as "another example of white co-opting."
Seattle Parks and Recreation indicated that Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell will partner with black leaders to "conceptualize a new commemorative garden at Cal Anderson Park." It is unclear when construction of such a new garden might begin.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
As Seattle Settles Major Lawsuit, Media Still Insist George Floyd Riots Were ‘Mostly Peaceful’
The media’s suspicious coalescing around the phrase 'mostly peaceful' to describe the Floyd riots was always transparently dishonest.
Seattle officials considered giving Black Lives Matter a police precinct cops abandoned amid violent protests in 2020: Report
Seattle officials considered giving Black Lives Matter the police department's East Precinct building that cops abandoned amid violent protests in June 2020, shortly after the death of George Floyd, the Seattle Times reported, citing newly released documents.
What are the details?
Then-Mayor Jenny Durkan’s administration drafted legislation to transfer the multimillion-dollar property to Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County, the paper said.
Calvin Goings, director of the city’s Department of Finance and Administrative Services, emailed three memos and a draft resolution to Durkan on June 8, 2020 — around the time police were abandoning the East Precinct on Capitol Hill, the Times reported.
Durkan’s office discussed the transfer with the BLM chapter, the paper said, adding that the activist organization had lobbied to turn the building into a center for public health and community care.
“Good afternoon Mayor, Please see the attached documents as requested. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns,” Goings wrote, according to the Times, which added that text messages exchanged among key decision-makers — including Durkan and her police and fire chiefs — have gone missing.
However, the Times obtained the East Precinct memos this month through a records request, and the paper said they're the only details that City Hall has publicly disclosed about the potential precinct building transfer. The paper added that Durkan — whose term expired last month — distanced herself from the plan, which never came to pass as police reoccupied the precinct on July 1.
Durkan abandoned the transfer idea after “the very preliminary work by [the city’s Department of Finance and Administrative Services] and the realities of policing confirmed it was neither feasible nor in the best interest of public safety,” according to an email from Durkan spokesperson Chelsea Kellogg, the Times said.
Police officials apparently weren’t included in the conversations, as spokesperson Sgt. Randy Huserik told the paper via email that "we were not aware of any plans on the city’s part to permanently leave the precinct, or any plans to share the space with the community."
Former Deputy Mayor Casey Sixkiller said in a recent deposition that the Durkan administration gave up on the East Precinct transfer idea after BLM activists said they didn’t want the property, the Times reported, adding that Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County board member Anthony Canape said the organization "will not make a statement at this time."
'No plan to transfer the East Precinct'
The paper added that the Durkan administration denied the precinct building was offered, noting that Kellogg said “there was no plan to transfer the East Precinct and from the time SPD made the decision to temporarily evacuate the precinct for safety reasons, it always planned to return."
However, the Times said the June 8 memos show Durkan’s office was interested in a transfer before the precinct was abandoned, adding that a BLM letter dated June 15 — and circulated by mayoral staffers — demanded the transfer and offered to kick in millions of dollars to repurpose the building.
“We demand an active, responsive resource and tool that works for us, not one simply handed off for political expediency,” the letter said, according to the paper, and added that "one of our goals in reclaiming the East Precinct for this use is to quiet the physical space and surroundings. Protesters need a reprieve. They need to know that demands have been met.”
Then-Deputy Mayor Shefali Ranganathan noted to other top mayoral staffers in an email that day that BLM is "willing to bring $ to the table," the Times reported.
But Kellogg suggested Durkan didn’t request the June 8 draft resolution, the paper said: “Interesting that you assume and state that the Mayor asked for a draft resolution on this property when that is not how the process works. [The city’s Department of Finance and Administrative Services] oversees both city owned property and many real estate deals.”
Yet FAS spokesperson Melissa Mixon said "the Durkan administration directed FAS — in its capacity as the city’s real estate and facility management agency — to outline the process to transfer the East Precinct to BLMSKC,” the Times reported.
What's more, the Times quoted from what it said was a transfer resolution: “The City transfers permanent use/ownership of … the East Precinct to Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County, effective July 1, 2020. The City of Seattle agrees to vacate the property and remove all law-enforcement materials and police-related facilities …”
Anything else?
Amid the standoffs between Seattle police and protesters in early June 2020, the paper said Durkan ordered cops to remove barricades and let protesters pass by.
As cops were moving to abandon the East Precinct, protesters began referring to the area as an "autonomous zone." Soon it was dubbed CHOP (Capitol Hill Organized Protest) and CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone), where activists lived for several weeks.
Durkin at first stated that "the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone #CHAZ is not a lawless wasteland of anarchist insurrection — it is a peaceful expression of our community's collective grief and their desire to build a better world." Yet at the same time the police chief said rapes and robberies were occurring in the zone — and officers weren't able to respond to them.
After shootings occurred in the area on back-to-back nights — one of them fatal — Durkan was finally done with the zone. She also apologized for saying the zone could bring about a "summer of love." Durkin announced on June 22 that police would go back to the East Precinct building, the Times said, and they did so on July 1.
Here's a June 12, 2020, video report about police abandoning the precinct and what happened in the area just afterward:
Police abandon precinct in Seattle neighborhood, demonstrators move in and demand reformsyoutu.be
Seattle cop debunks 4 major 'defund the police' myths in scathing op-ed: 'This is nonsense'
Christopher Young is a self-identified left-leaning progressive from Seattle who wants to legalize drugs and expand the welfare state.
He also happens to be a 26-year veteran Seattle police officer and detective and former member of the U.S. military. And he is fed up with the lies he has heard from the defund-the-police left in America. So in an op-ed for the New York Post published Sunday, Young took it upon himself to debunk "four core myths of the #DefundPolice movement." He began:
As a progressive who wants to decriminalize drugs and advance the welfare state, I fit in well in my Pacific Northwest community. Except, that is, for my job: I've been a big-city cop here for 26 years. Before that, I served in the military. The raging #DefundthePolice movement doesn't know me and my colleagues at all — and persistent myths about police and their critics do more harm than good.
Myth #1: "Police are killing large numbers of civilians."
This one is just plain untrue, Young stated, adding that policing in the U.S. has steadily improved over the last half-century.
He pointed to New York City as evidence, noting that the NYPD, which makes up 5% of all American police forces, "has meticulously tracked every shot fired by its officers since 1971" and found a steady drop in killings by police from 93 in 1971 to five in 2018.
And crime has dropped at the same time. "[T]he NYPD has successfully used less lethal means of preserving — and improving — the rule of law," Young wrote.
Myth #2: "The anti-cop movement is largely peaceful."
Any person who paid actual attention to the riots that plagued American cities this year knows that to be false, the detective said. The daytime protests shown on TV were largely peaceful, but things got nasty when the sun went down.
[T]he dynamic changed dramatically at night. Protests became intentional riots, designed to draw a police response that allowed rioters to claim victim status.
They would begin with insults, shouted at the riot line for hours in the hope that exhausted officers would retort on video; some told officers to commit suicide. Then they would throw rocks, shine bright lasers in our eyes and throw fireworks and Molotov cocktails — forcing the police to respond.
The media, he noted, "adopted the comically false 'peaceful-protest' narrative and perpetuated the myth of pervasive police brutality" and offered little other anti-cop propaganda.
Myth #3: "Abolishing police wouldn't lead to lawlessness."
Young said that many of the defund-the-police activists are anarchists who want to get rid of government and believe that civilization would blossom because a "society of angels" would chose to serve each other.
No place was this notion exposed as "nonsense" more than in the CHAZ that plagued Seattle last summer.
The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone was a nightmare for Emerald City locals — and all because police were not allowed in. From Young:
Police weren't allowed in the "occupied" protest zone for three weeks. It immediately became a hellscape and led to the shooting deaths of two young black men — the very people the movement claims to want to protect from the police.
Myth #4: "Today's police are 'militarized.'"
Young contrasted his time as a cop with his time as a U.S. soldier, noting that not once in his more than 25 years as a cop has he been tasked with sitting in an armed vehicle's turret with a belt-fed machine gun, though he did so regularly as a member of the military. He also shared:
Contrary to activist complaints, SWAT teams' armored vehicles, armored clothing and special training help them avoid deadly force, not commit it. A regular cop is often justified shooting someone who threateningly brandishes a gun. A SWAT officer wearing protection, however, will wait longer before resorting to deadly force. In Seattle, our SWAT team recently saved a suicidal young black man with a gun.
Young closed his op-ed by highlighting the need for cops on the street, even in relatively low-crime cities like Seattle. He added that the arguments from social justice warriors that policing is hopelessly broken and that police must be defunded should be ignored.
"Take it from a left-leaning cop," he wrote. "Those arguments are either wildly exaggerated or just plain false."
Today's top stories
www.theblaze.com
freebeacon.com