Anarchists and Antifa members have taken over a police station in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle forming what they term an ‘autonomous zone.’ The protesters took over the building after local police abandoned the building thinking the protesters were planning to burn it down. The precinct is just six blocks from downtown.
The group took over Seattle’s East precinct, set up barricades and declared the area a ‘cop free zone.’
I’m outside of the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct for @townhallcom. Police have pulled out of the area and protesters have set up barricades in the streets. They have declared it a “Cop Free Zone.” pic.twitter.com/iYFQ9B4jhz
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) June 9, 2020
A map of the ‘regime’-held areas taken over by protesters was posted to Twitter. At least one neighborhood in the surrounding area has been feeding and providing support for the protesters.
The militants are getting organized and are calling on members to arm themselves and set up shifts to defend the area. They are now controlling who can come in and out of the area.
The atmosphere in the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or CHAZ, is more like a festival than an insurrection. The protesters are creating art, getting free food, bands are playing and people are helping each other.
But how long can it last?
God bless these revolutionary LARPers for thinking they created an autonomous zone in Seattle that has no ability to grow food or maintain any sort of self-sustaining society. pic.twitter.com/XSePxN57al
— Ian Miles Cheong @ stillgray.substack.com (@stillgray) June 9, 2020
While it’s all fun and games now, the group ‘Free Capital Hill’ has published a list of demands on medium.com.
In credit to the people who freed Capitol Hill, this list of demands is neither brief nor simplistic. This is no simple request to end police brutality. We demand that the City Council and the Mayor, whoever that may be, implement these policy changes for the cultural and historic advancement of the City of Seattle, and to ease the struggles of its people. This document is to represent the black voices who spoke in victory at the top of 12th & Pine after 9 days of peaceful protest while under constant nightly attack from the Seattle Police Department. These are words from that night, June 8th, 2020.
The group calls for abolition of the Seattle Police Department, a ban on the use of weapons or force on those exercising their right to protest, an end to the ‘school-to-prison pipeline’ and dismantling of youth jails, reparations for the victims of police brutality, among other demands.
Seattle City Council has begun discussing defunding the police force. City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant, a member of Socialist Alternative, has introduced a bill to ban police from using chemical weapons and chokeholds in the city.
She also allowed the militants into city hall.
Thousands of protesters flood the Seattle City Hall, only one day after building a six-block autonomous zone in Capitol Hill. Protesters have adopted HK-style street fighting tactics to withstand police attacks and have begun seizing infrastructure. pic.twitter.com/ERu8E7q2up
— Vitalist International (@VitalistInt) June 10, 2020
The scene inside #Seattle City Hall as protesters pack both the 1st & 2nd floors just before pm @KIRORadio #seattleprotest #BlackLivesMattters pic.twitter.com/4NMZxQFfE9
— Hanna Scott (@HannaKIROFM) June 10, 2020
As of this writing, the Seattle streets within the ‘autonomous zone’ are scheduled to be closed until June 12th.
very interested to see what happens when the Seattle Autonomous Zone discovers the need for an economy and, in the case when your countrys terrain is predominantly asphalt, external trade
— eigenrobot (@eigenrobot) June 9, 2020
- Dr E
