Attorney General William Barr expressed relief and commended Seattle police after the department cleared a six-block area known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest following a string of incidents he said proves the police-free zone was “a haven for violent crime.”
Barr thanked Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best “for her courage and leadership in restoring the rule of law in Seattle.”
“For the past several weeks, the Capitol Hill area of Seattle was occupied by protesters who denied access to police and other law enforcement personnel,” Barr said in a statement on Wednesday. “Unsurprisingly, the area became a haven for violent crime, including shootings that claimed the lives of two young people, assaults, and robberies.”
Protesters took control of the area on June 8, keeping police out and vowing to not leave until the city met a list of demands, including defunding local law enforcement by at least 50%.
In the weeks that followed, Seattle police reported multiple instances of assault, rape, and robbery in and around the area. Two teenage boys were shot, one fatally, earlier this week.
On Wednesday, Seattle police cleared the area, following an executive order from Mayor Jenny Durkan, with officers reportedly making dozens of arrests.
After protesters gathered outside her house on Sunday, the mayor’s office slammed the activists for acting “without regard for the safety of the mayor and her family.”
When the demonstrations began, President Trump slammed Durkan, a Democrat, for allowing a portion of her city to be sealed off from law enforcement.
“If they don’t do the job, I’ll do the job,” Trump told reporters during the early days of the standoff.
The president has faced criticism for the way the federal government responded to peaceful Black Lives Matter protests in other areas of the country, where some of the demonstrations have deteriorated into rioting, looting, and other acts of violence.
“There is a fundamental distinction between discussion of substantive issues — including addressing distrust of law enforcement by many in the African American community — and violent defiance of the law,” Barr said of the protesters in Seattle. “Chief Best has rightly committed to continue the substantive discussion while ending the violence, which threatens innocent people and undermines the very rule-of-law principles that the protesters profess to defend.”
Barr said the clearing of CHOP sends a strong but pointed message to the American people.
“The Constitution protects the right to speak and assemble freely,” he said. “But it provides no right to commit violence or defy the law, and such conduct has no place in a free society governed by law.”
