SEATTLE (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th June, 2020) A leader of Seattle's protest movement in an interview to Sputnik denies ever intending to secede from the United States and downplays the takeover of an entire city neighborhood as the result of an unexpected and unwelcome rogue initiative that was amplified by media hype.
US President Donald Trump in a tweet on Tuesday warned that any "Autonomous Zone" will be met with force in an obvious reference to the situation in Seattle, a city located on the country's northwest coast in the state of Washington.
David Lewis, a young African American in a tie and eyeglasses, introduces himself as one of the voices of the movement for racial justice. He is listened to by many in the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) community, including a group of disciplined men responsible for maintaining order in the area that has been off-limits to police for over two weeks already.
A behavioral psychologist by training and a project manager at a large e-commerce company by current occupation, Lewis recollects how he was teargassed during early Seattle protests and the next day led a procession of 7,000 directly to Mayor Jenny Durkan, who came out to start a dialogue on reforming the Seattle Police Department. Several days later six city blocks, portions of several streets, a baseball stadium and a park fell in the hands of protesters after police vacated its East Precinct building in the neighborhood.
"As one of the people who was organizing the initial protest then and as the person who said 'Let's march to this precinct' on the day, I can say that no one was expecting the officers to ever abandon the police station. Our whole intention was for them to relieve the barricades so that we could walk peacefully through," Lewis says.
Police officials were quoted in the media as saying that they left the precinct to avoid friction with protesters at the height of demonstrations and did not expect them to take over the building.
"When they abandoned the precinct, we were met with this extremely awkward position in which we knew that there potentially might be, not our own protesters, but other individuals who had problems with the officers and who wanted to potentially harm the precinct. We posted guards to protect the precinct itself," Lewis explains.
He recalls that protesters were so amazed to find the precinct unlocked that they suspected a trap. It still looks largely intact with entrances closed and first floor windows covered with plywood panels. Activists spray painted "people" over "police" on building signs.
"And later on in the day a random unaffiliated person who is a self-declared anarchist claimed this land as a Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone - CHAZ. None of the leadership, none of the organizers had that knowledge, nor the sentiment. The media caught wind of it. It ripped. It was now CHAZ," he says.
According to Lewis, organizers even resorted to a rebranding to disavow the concept "anarchist autonomous zone."
"We are actively trying to change that narrative. Even that night after CHAZ was released, a couple of organizers came back to the baseball field and explained that by no means are we seceding from America, by no means are we even seceding from the city, that this is an organized protest to end police brutality - at least in Seattle and hopefully our nation," he says. "That's actually why the name changed from CHAZ to CHOP - Capital Hill Organized Protest."
Trump has repeatedly singled out Seattle among all protest localities and has threatened to step in unless the mayor and the Washington state governor, Jay Inslee, "do their job."
"For a brief moment, when someone declared us as an autonomous zone, there was a certain reality and heft to that statement simply because it is the United State President's duty to take back any soil that claims to be autonomous. This is another reason why we're very clear - we are not ceding from America," Lewis says. "Once we were able to communicate this is not an autonomous zone, Trump's post became as light-hearted as the majority of his tweets and unfounded."
He estimates "in the thousands" the number of protesters in Seattle, many of whom live in tents set up along the edge of the stadium and in an adjacent public park, parts of the barricaded CHOP territory. Apart from protesting, they entertain themselves with political debates, art, gardening, spontaneous street concerts, yoga and self-defense classes. Lewis takes pride in "a distributed leadership" and "a fruitful donation system" of the enterprise.
"Everyone here is a leader. Everyone here has a voice. We try to make sure to communicate with every incident as it comes," he says.
Men with radios and binoculars, some in tactical or bullet-proof vests are on guard at the CHOP entrances and swiftly interfere when conflicts occasionally erupt among the diverse population of the zone.
Though Lewis denies the presence of people in "militarized gear," a Sputnik reporter saw a man with two guns in holsters, a pepper spray and a telescopic truncheon who punched in the face a protester for apparently trying to set ablaze an umbrella. It was not immediately clear whether the attacker belonged to the CHOP security forces. The injured was treated by volunteer medics.
Lewis several times uses the word "occupation", but corrects himself immediately. He claims that people in the neighborhood are "fairly supportive" of the cause.
"I firmly believe that a lot of the residents and business owners consider themselves victims similar to us. We try to actually have an active relationship with many of them, talking to them, making sure they feel safe, making sure they feel secure and if they have any complaints we modify our behavior," he says.
Once Lewis interrupts an interview for half an hour when he was asked to sort out complaints of a local businessman.
There were media reports that business owners were asked for donations to the budget of the protest.
"I can't confirm or deny it simply because it is beyond my knowledge. The unfortunate thing about having a sedimentary protest is that many impostors, anyone with a face can come to any of these businesses and ask for money in the name of us. Other organizations have actually accepted tens of thousands of Dollars under our name or under this act of this protest," Lewis says.
"As one of the organizers and one of the initial people, I have not accepted a single cent from anybody and actually have put in $4,500 of my own money protecting, supporting facilities here with the people," he added.
Security proved to be a weak spot of the enterprise, initially hailed by sympathetic media and local authorities as "a summer of love" and "a protest heaven."
A major crisis erupted last weekend when two shootings near the CHOP zone left one protester killed, two more people wounded and forced Durkan to announce that the city will move to reclaim the neighborhood. The mayor indicated she prefers a negotiated solution and will try to reach out to protesters.
The Seattle police chief, Carmen Best, said, however, that they will seek greater powers to use force now constrained by a court order. Best added that though most demonstrators are peaceful, there are also "groups of individuals engaging in shootings, rape, assaults, burglary, arson, and property destruction."
Lewis called Saturday's fatal shooting "a horrendous crime" perpetrated just outside CHOP borders by an external person. He blamed the city for refusing to send first responders from a neighboring fire department to the scene.
"We actually have a video record of our medics pleading and begging a firetruck to come in. And the fire truck left the precinct of the Fire Department, stopped, reversed, the garage doors closed, leaving our medical staff literally kneeling, begging for the floor for the officers to come," he says. "At that point, we realized that we were abandoned by our city. We ran the individual to the hospital."
He showed a video of a person standing on his knees in front of a fire truck moving backward to a garage.
Police said that on Saturday night, when a 17-year old was shot dead and a 33-year old critically wounded, law-enforcement officers were met with a hostile crowd that prevented them from getting to the victims.
"Because we could not guarantee the safety for the first-responders neither the officers, nor medics were able to get there and treat the wounded," Best said.
When asked if the police were allowed inside, Lewis said that officers did "a perimeter check and we confirmed with them that the shooter was gone." He said that it is "a community decision" whether to let police on the grounds.
The shootings and the mayor's announcement split the CHOPers with some leaving the grounds, others opting to stay and reinforce barricades in an anticipation of a police attack.
"I do agree there is a lack of consensus. That's a funny thing about all revolutions - it looks different in everyone's eyes. But one thing that everyone can agree with is that justice for black people's America is something that is worth putting our lives on the line," Lewis says.
His personal recommendation is to abandon the precinct and "continue disruptions in other ways to force the change."
"It's simply a place," he says. "That said there is quite a large amount of people who believe that this precinct is a symbol and they are willing to put their lives on the line to protect it. Because of that I will stand with them."
