MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th June, 2020) Protesters organized two marches in West Seattle on Sunday, calling for racial justice and changes to law enforcement practices, local media report.
According to The Seattle Times, a group of demonstrators marched through West Seattle's Pigeon Point neighborhood on Sunday morning, while in the afternoon, a protest march was held in the Delridge neighborhood.
Videos released on the West Seattle Blog on Twitter show protesters marching with signs saying "Make police protectors again" and chanting "Prosecute the police!"
Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said on "Face the Nation" on Sunday that last Friday's Black Lives Matter march in the city, which drew around 60,000 protesters, was "a pivotal moment in history" and that "policing will never be the same as it was before."
Best said that work was being done to return law enforcement officers to the East Precinct on Capitol Hill, which was vacated by police last Monday. Protesters have since claimed a few blocks on nearby streets, calling the area the "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone" (CHAZ), or the "Capitol Hill Occupied Protest" (CHOP).
On Sunday, Seattle musicians organized a musical and educational sit-in in the CHAZ/CHOP zone.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan visited the CHAZ/CHOP zone on Friday and joined the Black Lives Matter silent march, saying on Twitter that the demonstrators were walking out "to abolish the school to prison pipeline, end biased policing, and undo centuries of systemic racism in our country."
Earlier this week, Trump called on the Seattle mayor on Twitter to end the "takeover of her city" organized by "anarchists."
Mass protests against police brutality and racial discrimination have been ongoing in the US since the death of George Floyd, an African-American man, in police custody in the US state of Minnesota on May 25. Floyd died after Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis white police officer, pinned him to the ground with his knee for over eight minutes. Chauvin has been charged with second-degree and third-degree murder and manslaugh
