Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County calls for statewide protest, general strike
Jun 6, 2020, 5:26 PM | Updated: 11:47 pm
Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County (BLMSKC) called for a statewide march and general strike in a press conference on Saturday.
Photos: Protests from around the Puget Sound region
The organization called for silent marches in Seattle and across Washington to take place on Friday, June 12.
This comes after BLM Seattle-King County had issued a statement earlier in the week emphasizing that it had been discouraging protests over concerns for the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, urging the black community to “put your safety and health before anything else.”
It also noted that marches and protests in the state up until now had not been organized or sanctioned by the organization.
That being so, BLMSKC leadership felt it was time to prioritize what it feels is a larger threat to the black community.
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“It’s important to emphasize that this was not an easy decision,” said BLMSKC Chair Ebony Miranda. “But we’re not taking risk; we’ve been put at risk. Racism itself is its own pandemic.”
Also organizing a march set for June 14 is Black Lives Matter Seattle, a separate organization which also operates under the BLM moniker in Washington. That march will take place at Westlake Park.
Washington state and the city of Seattle have already met some demands of protest organizers, responding to the police killing of George Floyd, police brutality, and systemic racism.
Seattle Mayor Durkan ended curfews, changed policy for mourning badges so officers can be identified, paused the use of tear gas in most cases during protests, and scrapped a request for a federal judge to end a 2-year entertainment period for the SPD consent decree.
Miranda said that’s tremendous progress, but it is not enough. To get to sustained long-term change and an end to systemic racism, she said there is more work to do.
Marlon Brown, with Black Lives Matter Seattle and King County, said on Saturday they delivered a half dozen new demands to Durkan. The new demands include requiring Seattle Police and all law enforcement turn on body cams from start to end of shift, more regulations on use of footage, and that access and use be taken out of the hands of police.
They also want $100 million dollars of the Seattle Police budget normally used for militarized weapons and equipment divested to invest in de-escalation, mental health and crisis intervention teams, community oversight in police contract bargaining, an end to homeless camp sweeps, and creation and full staffing of a black commission to address these and other issues.
KIRO Radio’s Hanna Scott contributed to this report.
