One protester said they will take over the police precinct in the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” or CHAZ, whether law enforcement threatens them or not.
On Friday, CNN reporter Dan Simon on the scene of the CHAZ, an occupied, six-block area in Seattle, Washington, interviewed a protester near a boarded-up police station. The protester insisted the group would maintain control of the area whether or not national or local authorities threatened them to disperse.
“I’m not scared of Donald Trump, no. And I’m not scared of these police officers either. We’re going to stay outside this building whether they come here or not. We’re going to take this building over, whether they’re outside threatening us or not. We brought the fight to them on their front lines and pushed their line back. We’re not afraid of them,” said the unidentified protester.
Lt. Tammy Floyd, an officer with the Seattle Police Department, also spoke with Simon about the occupation of downtown Seattle and agreed the police department needs to do “better.”
“We want a dialogue. We want to communicate right. But if the public is so angry at us, how do we start that?” said Floyd.
Simon described the scene of the CHAZ as a “street-like festival” to network host Chris Cuomo, dismissing concerns articulated by President Trump that the area is occupied by “anarchists.”
“It’s like a Friday night social scene out here. You have this street-like festival situation, hundreds of people. There’s a barbecue going on. You’ve got people walking around with their six-packs of beer. You have folks who aren’t necessarily part of this movement just coming by to have a look at things and take photos of this police department in this current state,” Simon said.
A spokesman for law enforcement in Seattle, Washington, told the Daily Caller that several officers are currently in its East Precinct and plan to move personnel back once the building is assessed.
“We do have officers in the precinct,” said Mark Jamieson, a Seattle police public affairs official, to the Daily Caller. “There are plans to get all officers back into the precinct.”
CHAZ protesters have renamed the police precinct to the “Seattle People Department,” claiming it is the “property of the people” and stressing that no police would be allowed in the area.
