Ross: Moving on to the ‘next steps’ after the CHOP
Jun 23, 2020, 8:14 AM | Updated: Jun 24, 2020, 11:17 am
Demands from protesters inside the CHOP. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
Two weeks after Seattle Police abandoned the East Precinct in a confrontation with protesters who then created an occupied protest zone, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan has decided to take it back.
On Saturday, there was a shooting in the zone that claimed the life of a young Black man. And that was too much. So, the mayor who once described the occupation to CNN as a summer of love, has announced plans to bring the police back, peacefully.
She was supported by several Black community leaders, including the founder of Mothers Against Police Brutality, along with an activist whose brother was shot by Seattle police, and a pastor who offered displaced demonstrators the use of his church’s sanctuary.
Even the local Black Lives Matter organization said Black people should “consider gathering elsewhere.”
In the zone itself, a supporter named Damien, who’s lived in the area all his life, agreed it was time.
“The message is being kind of misconstrued … with a lot of the stuff that’s going on up here, this is starting to lose control,” Damien described. “We gotta get to the next steps. This is cool, we made a statement with this, but we need to move to the next steps. This is not producing any next steps at this point. This is just kind of holding the neighborhood hostage.”
People will be angry, because here it is – the establishment wins again! But what keeps it going is that compared to anarchy, it starts to look pretty good.
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