© JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images
A protester uses a scope on top of a barricade to look for police approaching the newly created Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) in Seattle, Washington on June 11, 2020.
And the hills the greenest green in Seattle
Like a beautiful child growing up free and wild
Full of hopes and full of fears
Full of laughter full of tears
Full of dreams to last the years in Seattle
In Seattle
So Perry Como sang in the late '60s. Now it seems the days of beautiful children growing up free and wild are returning to Seattle. Like other American cities over the last three weeks, Seattle saw protests rapidly become violent clashes with police. This ugliness waxed and waned for a fortnight until police withdrew from their East Precinct Building, effectively ceding the surrounding area to the protestors. Barriers were erected around it by activists who initially christened the new territory the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), and
later renamed it the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP). As
their quasi-manifesto of June 9th put it, they had "liberated Free Capitol Hill in the name of the people of Seattle."
Now a tense and potentially dangerous stand-off has developed. What does the city administration intend to do? On June 11th, the Democratic mayor of the city, Jennifer Durkan,
was interviewed on CNN by a sympathetic Chris Cuomo. Cuomo began by asking if Durkan had lost control of her own city's streets.
Durkan: We've got four blocks in Seattle that you just saw pictures of that is more like a block party atmosphere. It's not an armed takeover, it's not a military junta. We will make sure that we can restore this. But we have block parties and the like in this part of Seattle all the time... There is
no threat right now to the public and we're looking, we're taking that very seriously, we're meeting with businesses and residents...
Cuomo: The counter will be block parties don't take over a municipal building, let alone a police station and destroy it, basically thumbing their nose at any sense of civic control. Do you believe that you have control of your city, and that you would be able to clear those streets? Because you haven't.
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