I'm friends with several people that participated in CHAZ and your assessment of it is incorrect. It was doomed from the start but calling the people occupying it a violent mob is not correct. I personally believe it was a mistake because the people occupying it did not have or want a monopoly on the use of force in their area, meaning that it became a site of unrelated mob and gang violence because the police were not present. That's different from saying it was a violent mob who occupied it with the intent to harm others.

The armed occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge was also “mostly peaceful.” Much more peaceful than CHAZ/CHOP, in fact.

I am friends with people who lived close by and visited the CHAZ/CHOP, and I watched live-streams from the CHAZ nearly 24/7 for the entire span of its existence. It was a lawless area patrolled by gun wielding far-left activists who routinely harassed journalists, ripped phones out of streamers’ hands to delete footage of the “security team’s” deadly mistakes, assaulted visitors of the wrong political stripe, and ultimately were responsible for the shooting deaths of several people. While the atmosphere was more “street festival” during the day, at least for a while, at night and as the occupation wore on it swiftly devolved into violent anarchy.

Remember Raz Simone, the local rapper who showed up on the first night with an AK-47? Remember how he handed out rifles to seemingly random untrained people from the trunk of a car? Remember how his crew assaulted and pistol-whipped a graffiti tagger on the very first night of CHAZ/CHOP, on a Facebook Live stream, saying “we are the police now?” Many similar incidents.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/seattle-autonomous-zone-leaders-w...

Precisely this. It was unacceptable when Bundy et al performed their actions, and what occurred in CHAZ / CHOP was equally unacceptable. The fact that people do not see these events as roughly analogous is amazing to me.

It's pretty hard to be sure you've got the right story with the latter, though. Makes it hard to pass judgement. I think Bundy et al was fairly cut and dried, generally everybody agreed on what happened, and disagreed on whether it was OK.

It's amazing what people overlook when the offenders belong to the same tribe as you.

Where's your evidence that the security team were responsible for the shooting deaths of several people?

Here is a protestor describing in vivid detail the killing of Antonio Mays Jr. by CHOP security, minutes after it happened while his blood is still wet on the ground. Clipped from Omari Salisbury’s stream (warning - disturbing):

https://youtube.com/watch?v=q5bA-iUPvqI&t=1m27s

Lorenzo Anderson was shot inside CHOP (though not by the “security team”), and died after amateur CHOP medics and confused city EMS flubbed his medevac. EMS couldn’t get to him quickly since the shooting scene wasn’t able to be secured.

https://www.kuow.org/stories/seattle-police-and-fire-confusi...

umm this? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53224445

No one disputes there was violence. What is disputed is who perpetrated it. As far as I know, there is no evidence it was committed by CHOP participants.

Your links do not support your statement. While the wikipedia article mentions some armed presence, it clearly puts that as a response to outside right-wing violence. No mention of is made of an "rifle-wielding “security team” assaulted journalists, intimidated residents, and murdered an unarmed black teenager" in either article. There certainly have been some unfortunate shooting deaths in the area at the time, but not much is known about either the perpetrators or their motivation.

How quickly people who don't live in Seattle shout nonsense about the CHAZ.

Let's break down what actually happened.

1. After weeks of protests, police intimidation, beatings, and frequent gassing of the entire street (much to the delight of people living there, who were unable to breathe inside their own apartments), including a right wing chap driving a car through a crowd, and shooting someone trying to pull him out of his vehicle, the police leave the east precinct, based on an FBI claim that it will be burnt down.

2. The protest moves into the blocks around it, and starts protecting the precinct.

3. The precinct does not burn down.

4. The protest moves elsewhere, and a block party starts.

5. An idiot called Raz, and his boys start providing 'security'. Nobody asked them for it. People who ran the protest didn't ask for it. People living in the area didn't ask for it. Smells like a gang moving into a power vaccumm to me.

6. Homeless folks move into the park area of CHAZ. The area gets a bit rough at night, but is still a block party during the day.

7. Someone in the homeless encampment gets killed in the early hours of the morning, presumably over drugs, but who knows.

8. A teenager steals a car and takes it on a joyride through the pedestrian areas of the CHAZ. (Remember all the car attacks against protest areas over the past few weeks in both Seattle, and the rest of the country? Not a smart move.)

9. Some unknown person kills him and injures his friend.

10. The police move back in to an unburnt district. They then set up a multi-block checkpoint, that demanded all entrants into the former CHAZ to show their ID to be allowed entrance. (When we were under the thrall of Warlord Raz, only drivers had to show ID at his checkpoint.)

There’s a lot to unpack in your post, but I’d just like to focus on “car attacks” here. You mention a “car attack” in Seattle. In actual fact, the incident I assume you mean was by all outward indicators a tragic accident, not a planned attack such as Charlottesville in 2017.

Driver Dawit Kelete (who is black, and not politically affiliated) was high on pills when he plowed through BLM protestors occupying a section of the freeway in the middle of the night. Tragically, one protestor died and another was seriously injured.

Most “car attacks” this summer have turned out to be simply reckless or confused drivers caught in the middle of unplanned, unannounced, often heavily-armed and aggressive street protests. Armed protestors have shot or shot at several such drivers, such as in Provo, UT and Aurora, CO.

https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/6/30/21308526/gunman-shot-...

https://www.denverpost.com/2020/08/03/man-charged-murder-sho...

By my reckoning, the actual count of “car attacks” this summer where a politically-motivated driver rammed a BLM/antifa protest can be counted on one hand. There has been a greater number of unprovoked attacks on drivers by protestors. This is the product of extreme paranoia among armed protestors, amplified by social media.

No, what I'm talking about is the one that took place on CH, during the East Precinct protests, not the freeway. You obviously don't live in Seattle.

The driver 'accidentally' turned, with speed, off an arterial, into the protest street, and despite having clear visibility of hundreds of people in his line of travel, kept driving, with people scattering out of his way.

He stopped when he hit a blockade, shot at one person who tried to open his car door, waved his gun around (With extra magazines jungle-taped together), and ran through the crowd directly into the police line. So much for being lost and confused, he seemed to know exactly where he was.

He was either planning a mass shooting, and lost his nerve at the last second, or was trying his damned hardest to provoke an attack on himself, presumably so he could respond with violence.

For an exercise - you try driving your car into a line of right wing militants protesting (or into a police line), and then shoot one of them. I doubt you will succeed in running to a line of safety, and I doubt their press will describe you as lost and confused.

Enough with the "You obviously don't live in Seattle." The event described by _iyig really did happen and was described accurately (except the "high on pills" part, I haven't seen any report of that, news I saw said he took a field sobriety test and was found to be unimpaired).

Unless you directly witnessed these events (which few people did, even amongst Seattleites), then you're getting your information second-hand just like everyone else.

Regarding pills, I read he had Percocet addiction problems and that drugs were found in the car:

>The charges say Kelete told jail officials that he was withdrawing from the narcotic Percocet and that he struggled with an “untreated addiction.” Washington State Patrol accident investigators found “several implements commonly used to smoke illegal substances” and a substance “that appears similar to crystal methamphetamine” in the car, according to the charges.

I hadn’t read about the field sobriety test (so thank you for providing that information!), only the drugs in the car and his opioid addiction. I don’t know whether a field sobriety test would detect that type of intoxication.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/seattle-man-...

> Unless you directly witnessed these events (which few people did, even amongst Seattleites), then you're getting your information second-hand just like everyone else.

I live here. I've spent weeks going to sleep to the sound of police grenades going off. I've been to CHAZ. I've watched, in bafflement, for weeks, at how news coverage - particularly national, but also local has painted an entirely different picture from what I've seen with my own two eyes.

The events he cites have taken place - but because of the superficial level of knowledge he has of the situation, he is omitting vital context.

I will absolutely gatekeep on this. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but it's quite clear that _iyig has no first-hand knowledge, and only superficial second-hand knowledge of what he's talking about.

At least, that's my most charitable interpretation of the situation.

That's right. My girlfriend in fact lived on Capital Hill at the time right outside, so I have a pretty good idea of the details.

>5. An idiot called Raz, and his boys start providing 'security'. Nobody asked them for it. People who ran the protest didn't ask for it. People living in the area didn't ask for it. Smells like a gang moving into a power vaccumm to me.

So you blocked the police out of a whole neighborhood of a few square blocks, and a gang moving into the power vacuum is a surprise? Come on!

> So you blocked the police out of a whole neighborhood of a few square blocks, and a gang moving into the power vacuum is a surprise?

It was completely unexpected. And it will be completely unexpected the next time, and the next time, and the next time...

Nobody blocked the police out of a neighborhood. They chose to leave, because they could not handle a peaceful protest outside their precinct, and could not restrain themselves from initiating violence.

And because they ran out of gas.

Contrast the SPD's behavior to how the Bellevue police department handled BLM protests. The police chief met with the protest organizers, treated everyone involved with respect, set some ground rules, and did not start a dozen unprovoked attacks on the public.

When all you have is a warrior cop, every problem looks like an insurgency to be put down. The SPD has an incredibly antagonistic attitude towards the public, and is institutionally incapable of de-escalating. It also seems to not actually be subject to any form of democratic oversight - as city council, despite passing many, many resolutions, is unable to reign them in.

The guy who murdered the teenager had nothing to do with the CHAZ security team. He snuck in specifically to murder the other kid.

I have a feeling you know this.

You are probably referring to a separate shooting death in CHOP, that of Lorenzo Anderson. I am referring to the murder of Antonio Mays Jr. by antifa security. This murder was filmed from multiple angles and recordings are widely available.

Short clips from several of the vantage points (skip to roughly 1:40 - warning, disturbing):

https://youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=_K0tXOBPMHA

Not really sure what I saw on that video. It's a mess.

The last I heard Antonio Mays murder was an active investigation with no arrests made: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/everybody-down-wha...

If it's an open and shut case and the shooter is clearly identifiable why is that? Is the Seattle Police in on this conspiracy?

I of course assumed you meant the other kid because the murderer was actually, yknow, detained and charged so their identity is obviously known.

Once again, I'm sure you actually know all of this.

My understanding is that the shooter is not clearly identifiable, but people that night were bragging on Twitter about the "beautiful shot placement" by "security on the ground": https://twitter.com/EffInvictus/status/1277828963369353216/p...

Video taken in the aftermath captures people discussing how they will collect and hide the evidence. Seattle Police found and questioned the woman who filmed that video, but she told them she didn't know anything: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/woman-releas...

> Once again, I'm sure you actually know all of this.

This kind of talk is quite small.

Here is a protestor describing in vivid detail the killing of Antonio Mays Jr. by CHOP security, minutes after it happened while his blood is still wet on the street. The video was clipped from a stream recorded by Omari Salisbury, an independent reporter who lives and works on Capitol Hill. His coverage was some of the most immediately on-the-scene (warning - disturbing):

https://youtube.com/watch?v=q5bA-iUPvqI&t=1m27s

You’re right that witnesses aren’t talking. This is part and parcel with the “didn’t see shit, don’t know shit” mantra of BLM/antifa protestors. As another user linked, there is video of protestors intentionally destroying the crime scene. Due to this lack of cooperation, Antonio Mays’ family may never receive justice.

> I have a feeling you know this.

they call that feeling "paranoia"