Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said Thursday that abandoning the city’s Third Precinct to radical protesters was “not my decision,” stating that “rapes, robberies,” and other violent crimes are occurring in the left-wing utopia known as “CHAZ” (“Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone”) as her officers are unable to respond.
“You should know, leaving the precinct was not my decision. You fought for days to protect it. I asked you to stand on that line,” Best addressed officers on Thursday, according to Yahoo! News. “Day in and day out, to be pelted with projectiles, to be screamed at, threatened and in some cases hurt. Then to have a change of course nearly two weeks in, it seems like an insult to you and our community.”
Earlier this month, left-wing anarchists and Black Lives Matter activists commandeered six city blocks, including a police precinct, in Seattle. The occupied “zone” has been dubbed the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” or “CHAZ” to the left-wing demonstrators.
During a visit to the now-abandoned precinct, Chief Best revealed that their calls for service and response times have “more than tripled,” as reported rapes and other violent acts in CHAZ are being committed while her force is unable to properly respond.
“Our calls for service have more than tripled,” she said (video below). “These are responses to emergency calls — rapes, robberies, and all sorts of violent acts that have been occurring in the area that we’re not able to get to.”
Meanwhile, Democratic Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan has described the anarchists at CHAZ as “patriotic” and compared the zone to a “block party.”
“We’ve got four blocks in Seattle that you just saw pictures of that is more like a block party atmosphere,” the Democrat told CNN on Thursday. “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. It’s known for that.”
The Daily Beast reported Sunday that CHAZ is now being patrolled by an armed “gun club.”
“Members of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club (PSJBGC)—a leftist community defense and firearms education organization that gained a spate of notoriety last year when a former member, Willem van Spronsen, set fire to an ICE parking lot—have been a constant presence,” writes Kim Kelly in a report for the Daily Beast. “The club is often asked to provide security for protests and rallies around the Seattle area, and while their involvement in CHAZ is structured more loosely, the presence of armed civilians has raised a few eyebrows.”
As noted by The Daily Wire’s Paul Bois, CHAZ, according to video footage, “has become a dilapidated wasteland where the anti-police graffiti reigns supreme along the sidewalks and buildings.”
“The footage, released on Sunday, reveals a section of The CHAZ overrun with anti-police graffiti. ACAB (All Cops Are Bad), Abolish SPD, Police Domestic Terrorist, Kill Cops, and F**k Racist Police all make an appearance alongside several Anarchy symbols and dead pig drawings,” Bois writes.
Left-wing protests back in 2011 included reports of rape, as well.
“Alleged sexual assaults at Occupy Wall Street camps have raised concerns about security in a handful of cities, including reports of rape and groping in tents at New York’s Zuccotti Park and a sex offender in Dallas having sex with an underage runaway,” ABC News reported on the 2011 left-wing Occupy Wall Street protests.
WATCH:
Seattle Police Chief: "Rapes, robberies and all sorts of violent acts have been occurring in the area and we're not able to get to [them]." #capitolhillautonomouszone #antifa #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/Oe5YfVz3uL
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) June 12, 2020
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