SEATTLE – Seattle police withdrew to a compound early Sunday, just hours after declaring a riot during large protests in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, near where weeks earlier people had established a “busy protest zone” that it spanned several blocks.
Some protesters were delayed after officers entered the department’s East Precinct around 1 a.m., but most left soon after, according to a video posted online.
Authorities said they threw stones, bottles, fireworks, and mortars at officers as they attempted to clear the area using sudden explosions and pepper spray over the course of several hours through Saturday night.
Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best called for peace at a late-night press conference and told reporters that she had not seen US agents that the Trump administration sent to the city in Saturday’s protest.
Through Twitter, police said they arrested at least 45 people for assaults on officers, obstruction, and lack of dispersal. Twenty-one officers were mostly lightly injured.
Previously, protesters in Seattle broke a fence where a juvenile detention center was being built, with some people setting fire to and damaging a portable trailer, authorities said.
Initially, thousands of protesters had gathered peacefully near the city center in a show of solidarity with other protesters in Portland, Oregon, where tensions with federal law enforcement agencies have escalated during protests stemming from the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Initially there were no signs of law enforcement near the Seattle march. Later, Seattle police said via Twitter that a dozen people raped the construction site of the King County Juvenile Detention Center. Additionally, police said protesters opened windows in a King County courthouse.
Earlier this week, King County Executive Dow Constantine, responding to long-standing demands from community activists, said he would work to eliminate juvenile detention centers in the county by 2025.
After the fire at the construction site, authorities said they had ordered people to leave a different area, in a section of Capitol Hill near downtown where the East Precinct is located. At least one person broke a fence line in the compound, authorities said, and moments later an explosive device left an 8-inch (20-centimeter) hole in the side of the compound.
Earlier this month, police cleared the “Capitol Hill Busy Protest” area after two fatal shootings. A group had occupied several blocks around a park for about two weeks after clashes and clashes that were part of the nationwide unrest over the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Before Saturday’s protests, Best had announced that the officers would be armed with pepper spray and other weapons, promising that the officers would not use tear gas and urging protesters to remain in peace.
“In the spirit of offering trust and full transparency, I want to advise you that SPD officers will be wearing pepper spray and blast balls today, as would be typical at events that have the potential to include violence,” Best said.
At an emergency hearing Friday night, US District Judge James Robart granted a request from the federal government to block the new Seattle law that prohibits police from using pepper spray, blast balls, and similar weapons.
The temporary restraining order halts the law that the Seattle City Council unanimously approved last month after clashes that have been largely peaceful but were sometimes marked by violence, looting, and road closures. The law aimed at reducing tensions between the police and protesters will take effect on Sunday.
But the United States Department of Justice, citing Seattle’s police consent decree, successfully argued that banning the use of crowd control weapons could lead to increased police use of force, leaving them with only more deadly weapons.
