LIVE FROM SEATTLE

The authorities in Seattle have surrendered a part of the city to Antifa thugs and louts. Christopher Rufo reports for City Journal:

Seattle’s hard-Left secessionist movement has claimed its first territory: six blocks in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.

For the past week, Black Lives Matter and Antifa-affiliated activists have engaged in a pitched battle with Seattle police officers and National Guard soldiers in the neighborhood, with the heaviest conflict occurring at the intersection of 11th and Pike, where law enforcement had constructed a barricade to defend the Seattle Police East Precinct building. Hoping to break through the barricade, protesters attacked officers with bricks, bottles, rocks, and improvised explosive devices, sending some officers to the hospital. At the same time, activists circulated videos of the conflict and accused the police of brutality, demanding that the city cease using teargas and other anti-riot techniques.

Then, in a stunning turn of events, the City of Seattle made the decision to abandon the East Precinct and surrender the neighborhood to the protesters. “This is an exercise in trust and de-escalation,” explained Chief Carmen Best. Officers and National Guardsmen emptied out the facility, boarded it up, and retreated. Immediately afterward, Black Lives Matter protesters, Antifa black shirts, and armed members of the hard-Left John Brown Gun Club seized control of the neighborhood, moved the barricades into a defensive position, and declared it the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone—even putting up a cardboard sign at the barricades declaring “you are now leaving the USA.”

Whole thing here. Next up, the Seattle Commune!

STEVE adds: I’d like to think that’s going here with the police abandoning the area is a wildcat strike, that is, the police giving the people of Seattle a dose of what life will be like if the police are abolished or “defunded.” And you know how sequels are seldom as good as the first movie? Think of this as Occupy Wall Street 2, with a bigger budget and more special effects.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/06/live-from-seattle.php