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Seattle Rioters Set Off ‘Large Explosion’ That Sends Cops To The Hospital

   DailyWire.com
SEATTLE, USA - MAY 1: Police in riot gear block the entrance to the freeway as protesters march through the streets on International Workers' Day in Seattle, Wash., United States on May 1, 2017. (Photo by Alex Milan Tracy/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Photo by Alex Milan Tracy/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Ongoing “anti-police” protests in Seattle descended into a riot yet again on Sunday as demonstrators set off a “large explosion” near a police car, sending at least one Seattle police officer to the hospital with injuries.

“The protest began in the Seattle neighborhood of SoDo around 7 p.m., with an estimated 100 people marching on foot with cars following behind them, according to a Monday morning press release by the Seattle Police Department,” Fox News reported Monday. “They made their way to the building that houses the Seattle Police Officer Guild and, within hours, the demonstration turned violent.”

Although the protests in Seattle have been routinely destructive, Sunday’s protest saw the use of a large incendiary device, apparently designed to injure police officers and inflict maximum damage.

“Multiple explosives were thrown toward officers,” Seattle’s police department said in a statement. “Several officers were struck by explosives and injured.”

Photos, obtained by Fox News, show one officer with lacerations to his neck and below his eye and what looks to be a large bruise just below his eye socket. Another photo shows an officer with burns to the back of his neck, just below his hairline.

“Three officers were hurt, and one was taken to an area hospital for their injuries,” Fox News said. “Their condition was not immediately known.”

It does not appear any of the officers sustained life-threatening injuries.

Seattle has been besieged by anti-police demonstrations since June when demonstrators set up the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” (later known as the” Capitol Hill Occupied Protest” or “CHOP”). After two killings, both of black teenagers, the zone was dismantled, but protests continued, often turning violent and destructive.

The situation has gotten so bad that the city’s police chief, Carmen Best, resigned last week citing a lack of support from city council members — who are actively pushing to defund the police department — and from the city’s mayor, Jenny Durkan, who has often spoken glowingly about the demonstrations.

Sunday, police declared a riot just before protesters set off their explosive devices and dispersed the crowd using “non-lethal” means. Fox News notes that police jailed more than a dozen demonstrators after ordering them to disperse.

Protests turned violent elsewhere in the country over the weekend. In Chicago, police cracked down after a planned “Black Lives Matter” demonstration got out of hand in the city’s Loop business district; at least two dozen protesters were arrested.

As The Daily Wire reported early Monday, in Portland, Oregon, where violent demonstrations have taken place nearly every night for the past three months, a man, who attempted to escape from protesters angry that he would defend another individual, was pulled from his vehicle and beaten unconscious.

“At 10:27 p.m., Central Precinct officers responded to a report of an injury accident at Southwest Broadway and Southwest Taylor Street,” Portland Police said in a report about the incident. “The report said protesters were chasing the truck before it crashed, and they assaulted the driver after the crash.”

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