Seattle protests: Nurse hit with pepper spray while trying to help a man run over by police

Police fired a stream of what appeared to be pepper spray directly into a nurse’s face while trying to help someone who had been pushed by police in Seattle amid renewed protests against police brutality.

The police declared riots in the city of Washington, while the protests continue in the United States following the police murders of black Americans with a renewed scandal over the deployment of federal agents by Donald Trump in American cities.

The video posted on social media shows the nurse, dressed in her green uniforms, walking along a grassy edge as police march toward protesters. When a man is shot down by heavily armored officers, she rushes forward and kneels down to help him, but they immediately spray him in the face. She falls back, but then she can stand up and an observer helps her to safety.

The nurse, whose identity was not immediately known, later told Simone Del Rosario of the Q13 Fox television channel that she was trying to “drive the guy away.” She said: “I have seen pictures of Hong Kong on how to get people away from the police because once they get them they arrest them, brutalize them, beat them.”

“I guess I saw the guy with the stick and the guy with the tear gas launcher, and it’s like, okay? Are you aiming that at people, are you sweeping people with it?”

Earlier this month The independent Andrew Buncombe, the United States’ chief correspondent, was arrested by police while covering a protest in Seattle. Despite repeatedly identifying himself as a journalist, he was held at a police station for more than six hours, forced to wear prison overalls, handcuffs, and a waist chain, assaulted, and threatened with a charge of not dispersing.

On Saturday, police fired tear gas, peppercorns, and blast balls at crowds in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, days after the Trump administration dispatched tactical units to the city.

At least 45 people were arrested, and police said “21 officers were injured,” although most returned to duty. An officer was hospitalized for a knee injury, police said in a statement.

Inspired by a Portland group that joined protesters in defending against police attacks, the Seattle Mothers’ Wall said the group marched peacefully until police and “federal agents with no tear gas marks launched gases to a group of mothers, allies and youth. “

“In broad daylight,” the group said. “Without provocation from the peaceful media or protesters. All moms (and their allies) know we can do better than this.”

Department of Homeland Security forces have terrorized protesters in Portland, Oregon, protesters say, and police declared Saturday’s riots in that city as a riot after a group compromised the fence around a federal courthouse used to organize federal officials. Legal experts have questioned his presence there.

The president ordered a “surge” of federal officials in American cities by adopting a “law and order” agenda that imposes strict and violent control on the protests that have affected the nation in the past two months.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said the president’s threats to send federal forces to Seattle “exacerbate the situation on the ground, endanger communities and endanger the work of local officials.”

“The president who unilaterally deploys paramilitary-type forces in American cities should be of concern to all Americans,” he said. “His blatant disregard for the constitution, and for the safety and well-being of our residents, is the despotism of textbooks.”

Police declared riots after a small group separated from the demonstration and entered a construction site near a juvenile detention center and “set fire to portable trailers and other equipment, and smashed windows in personal vehicles in the area e judicial facilities, “according to a police statement.

Outside of the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct, several people “began spraying and trying to disable the security cameras and the perimeter of a fence around the compound,” police said.

The venue has hosted nightly demonstrations, including an occupation of the building for almost a month.

Early Saturday, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order that blocks the Seattle City Council ordinance prohibiting the police use of mass weapons such as pepper spray, rubber bullets, and blast balls.

In a statement Thursday, Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said the City Council measure effectively “eliminates these tools as the least lethal options available across the board.”

“Council legislation does not give officers the ability to safely intercede to preserve property amidst a large violent crowd,” he said. Allowing this behavior worries me deeply, but I have a duty to follow Council legislation once it is in force. “

An “autonomous zone” established by protesters within several blocks within Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood had experimented with a community-run space without enforcement, relying on cooperatives and the atmosphere of a street festival, while the President declared it a threat of “domestic terror”. . Police finally cleared the area earlier this month after several shootings in the area.

In a statement on social media ahead of the weekend protests, Washington Governor Jay Inslee said the president “has sent federal officials to Seattle because he is eager for a confrontation. He wants attention.”

“We shouldn’t give him either,” said the governor. “Keep it peaceful, keep attention where it belongs: in building a better and fairer Washington for all.”