The protests in Seattle sparked a clash on Twitter between President Donald Trump, City Mayor Jenny Durkan and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who are both Democrats.
What is happening?
Seattle Police Assistant Chief Deanna Nollette he said they had received reports that a group of protesters had set up barricades and that “some armed individuals were operating them as checkpoints” in the city’s eastern area on Capitol Hill.
A CNN branch of KOMO reports that protesters surrounded the area with barricades and called it the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Police left the East Quarter building in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, boarded, but were not occupied. Officers respond only to emergency calls.
“While they have a constitutional right to carry a weapon, and while Washington is an open-carrying state, there is no legal right to use those weapons to intimidate community members,” Nollette told a news conference Wednesday. “No one at these checkpoints has the legal authority to demand identification from anyone.”
However, Nollette said: “In an effort to try to cooperate and cooperate and take a peaceful step forward, we are trying to start a dialogue.”
“We are trying to find a way to address this without unnecessarily affecting citizens and businesses doing business in the area,” she said. “We do not want the important message of justice and the improvement of police relations and the improvement of racial equality to be stifled by this small faction of what is happening.”
Who organizes it?
That is now unclear. Nollette said police are trying to establish a point of contact to establish a dialogue.
Seattle officials say there is no indication that the occupied area is being coordinated by left-wing activist groups under the auspices of Antifa, despite online rumors to the contrary.
“City officials have not communicated with“ armed fighters against the attack at this location, ”but will continue to be on the scene to closely monitor the situation,” Lori Patrick of the mayor’s office told CNN.
What did Trump say?
Trump tweeted that “domestic terrorists have taken over Seattle,” claiming they are “run by radical left-wing Democrats.” In another twitter, he said that Mayor Durken and government Inslee should “occupy” their city and that “these ugly anarchists must stop immediately (sic) HAVING”.
How did Durken and Inslee react?
Durken responded by telling Trump to “go back to his bunker,” a reference to when U.S. secret services moved him to a safe, underground part of the White House during protests last month.
Inslee told him to “stop tweeting”
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