As the story notes, the federal oversight has been worse than a failure, and needs to go. Then the City Council can do its job, NOT by passing knee-jerk responses to activists' demands, but by holding hearings to investigate why some protests get attacked by the SPD (WTO in downtown, George Floyd protests on Capitol Hill) whilst others do not (George Floyd protests in West Seattle). Getting to the bottom of that decades-old question would be a lot more useful than any post-injury knee-jerk legislating.

@1 Nearly all protests get attacked by SPD, or have you not noticed the attacks that had been on Occupy Wall Street or Thanksgiving or May Day protests?

Ashley, in stead of saying “former Council Member Kshama Sawant” you can just say “Trump supporter Kshama Sawant”

@1, It depends what is going on in the crowd. Is it ONLY being loud and expressive (1st Amendment Speech) or is the crowd a cover for people doing damage to people and property?

It seems to me there is a parallel to international law:

"Amnesty said Tuesday the attack on al-Qard al-Hassan must be investigated as a war crime because financial institutions are considered civilian infrastructure under the laws of war unless they are being used for military purposes."

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/middle-east-latest-over-a-dozen-killed-in-israeli-strikes-near-one-of-main-beirut-hospitals/

Speech is protected until it is allowed to be used as a cover for a criminal act, then the expressive conduct looses its protection.

This would put a reasonable burden on protesters to immediately separate from criminal conduct and report it, so SPD can deal with the criminal conduct as a discrete event. Until that happens, they can't deal with the conduct without first dispersing the march or rally that is being used as a cover for criminal conduct.

What Ashley is proposing is open season for criminal damage to people and property under cover of 1st Amendment activity since SPD has no way to differentiate the criminal from the merely expressive otherwise.

@4: "This would put a reasonable burden on protesters to immediately separate from criminal conduct and report it, so SPD can deal with the criminal conduct as a discrete event. "

It's between very difficult and impossible for protesters to do that when they are being indiscriminately blinded by mass deployment of tear gas and stunned by more or less random discharge of blast balls.

I was at the protest that became an arson filled riot in May of 2020. It was clear there were people in that crowd preparing to do damage. I left. And unfortunately watched the destruction of my city and neighborhood from my window (and my building was threatened with arson by a mob that night)

What non lethal methods of force do you want the police to use? Or would you rather someone with a Molotov cocktail in their hand just be shot dead immediately instead.

If your answer is just to let them burn the place down then you are part of the problem.

And if you think your anger at the prospect of another Trump presidency justifies violence against your city, then you really need to seek help.

@2: I gave examples; you did not. Furthermore, I protested for hours at WTO and was not attacked by anyone. Elements in the police attacked sections of the marchers. Later, the SPD forced the few rowdies up Capitol Hill for a fight in my residential neighborhood.

Without exception, every May Day protest I personally witnessed in Seattle consisted of an angry mob, which was absolutely spoiling for a violent fight. I quickly learned to avoid them.

@4: Seattle's Very Own Trump Supporter of the Left sponsored legislation against blast balls because she opposed local property rights, and didn't care about public safety, either. Her entire purpose was to leave the police with as few tools as possible, should her beloved violent insurrection occur.

@5, It is possible for protesters to do separate and report before deployments of such devices, when they observe people in the crowd preparing to or engaging in criminal conduct. If they do, then no blast balls need to be deployed because SPD can get at the criminal conduct separate from the rest of the protest. If those devices are being deployed it is because criminal conduct has already occurred, unreported by the rest of the protesters. SPD, or any other police force is trying to end the gathering being used as a cover for criminal conduct.

See @6.

You have cause and effect backwards. Riot = Crowd and criminal conduct from within the crowd. That does not mean the crowd is guilty of the conduct, but it becomes the cover for, and complicit in the conduct, when the crowd doesn't act to separate itself from the conduct and point it out to police.

Folks, the "Madison Method" has been policing best practice for handling protests for 50 years, studied over and over again and proven to be the best way (https://improvingpolice.blog/2024/05/20/the-madison-method/ ).

tl;dr: cooperate with all the non-bad guys in the crowd, and they'll tell you who the bad guys are, because the bad guys are in fact ruining the protest and the purpose everybody else came for (duh).

@10: Thank you for the link. Why the SPD appear to do none of the things described on that page should be a focus of the Council's investigation I recommended @1.

@9: "SPD can get at the criminal conduct separate from the rest of the protest."

And how many times has SPD actually tried to collect the necessary information systematically, accurately and in a non-confrontational way, and then moved in a measured and respectful manner to attempt to do that?

Zero.

@10 This depends on whether the crowd is there for the "protest" or excited to be part of burning the city. 2020 was definitely a majority excited to burn the city, occupy Capitol Hill and take over a police station. People wanted to be part of what they thought was a revolution (including the majority of our city council at the time). In hindsight were they just idiots and destructive criminals, yes. But make no mistake. People came out night after night because of the violence and destruction. There was no one to cooperate with. (and to some degree, Seattle "protesters" love this dynamic and have for decades. They come for the violence even if they aren't throwing bricks and lighting fires personally. They want to be part of a revolution.

@6 "If your answer is just to let them burn the place down then you are part of the problem."

Sadly that is the answer for many in Seattle. Every time something like this occurs and the inevitable bad actors show up we don't dare criticize the people committing the acts of violence and vandalism. We end up with comments like Morales made during the 2020 riots when she said "But what I don’t want to hear is for our constituents to be told to be civil, not to be reactionary, to be told looting doesn’t solve anything" or Mosqueda staring blankly into the camera while a protestor behind her shouts at an officer to take his own life. This is the mindset of a lot of the citizens of Seattle who view "people over property" while they defend some white kids destroying the storefront of a minority business owner. If and I still think it's a big IF Trump somehow manages to win this election I hope the SPD and everyone is ready for the inevitable riots to follow.

@13: "2020 was definitely a majority excited to burn the city, occupy Capitol Hill and take over a police station"

LOL. Think about this for 5 seconds. The police (of their own accord) totally abandoned the police station in question.

And then on one did s**t to it.

(Besides maybe some graffiti.)

@10, FTW!

How many times has the crowd separated from the conduct in question and yelled to draw police attention to it? Zero.

The problem is the bulk of protesters saying to themselves, "I am not a anarchist, and won't spray paint, break, put fire to _, etc., but I won't judge or report people who believe in that." That leaves police no option than to break up the protest because it has become complicit in the anarchist's choices.

With rights, come responsibilities. I am with Voltaire. "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." With that right comes the responsibility to not allow others to hijack that right from you for criminal purposes.

@16: "How many times has the crowd separated from the conduct in question and yelled to draw police attention to it?"

How in the holy living hell is "the crowd" supposed to manage that on their own? Especially when the sole police presence is a hostile-looking line who look geared up to gas you rather than on the lookout for troublemakers right at the front and nowhere else?

The police actually need to exercise some expertise (which...wait for it...other departments have) and coordination. This is all bog standard Madison Method stuff for departments that aren't full of MAGAT numbskulls:

"We maintain continuous conversation with organizers and crowd members. "

"Use specially trained officers. The best officers to use in crowd situations are officers who are specially selected and trained for this kind of work, and who have the personality to use a soft approach under sometimes trying circumstances—self-control is essential. Not every police officer can do this kind of work."

"Avoid anonymity at all costs. Police officers assigned to handle crowd duty are to be easily identifiable, with their names and badge numbers clearly visible. We avoid any measures or practices that reduce the police to be anonymous agents. "

"If the situation warrants it, we have a tactical unit (with full protective equipment) on standby in a location near the demonstration but out of sight. They are available as an emergency response to protect or rescue officers in or others in danger of being harmed. ... Deploying the emergency response team is a last-ditch tactic and will indicate that we have not been effective in managing the crowd with softer methods."

@17, "How in the holy living hell is "the crowd" supposed to manage that on their own?"

Fair question.

The crowd behind the people preparing to engage in criminal conduct (e.g. Taking out spray paint cans, pickling up bricks, taking out clubs, etc.) stops. The crowd ahead keeps moving. This creates a break in the protest mass with the suspects in the gap. March organizers can mention this in their calls for the protest. These marches occur when groups or groups make that call. They can include that in their e-mails, text messages, press releases, etc.

If there is a line of cops in body armor with shields, then the crowd around the suspects can face that line and point in the direction of the suspects. It creates an obvious point of reporting.

But the crowd doesn't do that. They look the other way and keep marching around the and past the criminal activity, with the crime only being discovered after the march passes by, or because some hapless property owner happens to be on the property and call 911.

The suspects just move and flow with the crowd to repeat.

That leaves dispersing the complicit camouflage to take the cover away that is concealing the ongoing crime spree.

The crowd's complicity let's a few hijack the legit 1st Amendment activity of the many and ruin it for the many. It also detracts from the message of the protesters. Now the story isn't about the issue being protested its about the crime that occurred under the cover the protest. I would think that detraction from the message of the protest would not be welcome.

Instead the protest organizers usually some equivocating bullshit statement after the protest: "We don't condone violence. That the violence occurred shows how angry people are about _." A nod and a wink.

@18: How about SPD just does what competent departments do - "Vancouver police developed a meet-and-greet strategy [for the 2010 Winter Olympics]. Instead of using riot police in menacing outfits, police officers in standard uniforms engaged the crowd. They shook hands, asked people how they were doing, and told them that officers were there to keep them safe. This created a psychological bond with the group that paid dividends. It becomes more difficult for people to fight the police after being friendly with individual officers."

https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/crowd-management-adopting-a-new-paradigm

@15 LOL indeed. Were you anywhere near Seattle in the summer of 2020? Downtown on May 30?
Try to walk past the armed "guards" for CHOP/CHAZ? People were really angry. Angry mobs think their idea of justice justifies violence against others. The only question to be answered when that happens is would you rather:
1. police use non lethal force
2. police use lethal force
3. Let it burn
4. Citizens use lethal force in self defense.

I happen to think 1 is the best option. How about you?

@17, "Use specially trained officers."

That requires hiring more officers. You can't train officers you don't have.

Once you have officers, every time you mandate more hours of training, you have to hire more officers.

When a patrol officer is mandated to go to training, another officer needs to be available to fill that patrol position on the street. Police aren't like schools, that shut down student teaching and services for in-service days, so teachers can get get continuing training and education.

When a detective gets pulled into training, the investigation of their cases stops for the duration of that training, so you need a surplus of detectives to keep doing the investigations for their colleagues that are being trained.

You had that manpower shortage to prevent the kind of training you call for during the 2020, 2021 protests. It's even more acute now.

France, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, etc. have far more cops per citizen than we do in the U.S. One of the reasons for that is to allow the superior quantity of training that European cops have. It's kind of like the U.S. Navy. They have two crews per nuclear submarine. "Blue" and "Gold" crews. When Blue has the sub out on patrol, Gold is in training and retraining, taking leave days, etc. When Gold has the sub out on patrol, Blue is in training. This insures that the Navy always has at least one ballistic submarine in each ocean on patrol. There is never a time when they aren't on patrol. European levels police of staffing allow that same non-break in patrol to occur while allowing high levels of training.

And European police use water cannon on protests, not blast balls, to break up protests where crime is occurring. Different method of force but no less damaging and injurious. At times lethal.

@21: By 2019, SPD officers were handling 28.5 serious (FBI UCR Part I) crimes per officer per year, down from 51.1 in 1990. SPD's staffing problems are a self-inflicted wound to avoid offloading non-crime calls and after the fact reporting from sworn officers to civilians like other departments (including those who compete for officers who choose the job for the right reasons like San Jose and Denver, and even Bellevue right across the lake).

We've had cops with time to burn - the problem is that SPD burns it on stuff cops shouldn't be used to do.

@20: In point of fact, SPD's apparent choice for the East Precinct was to #3 "let it burn" because they left it entirely unattended, with the prospect of your Very Angry Armed "Guards" at CHOP/CHAZ possibly preventing firefighters from responding...

And what happened? It didn't burn.

So perhaps that list is a bit off.

@22, So all your answers are essentially: "Protesters have ZERO obligation to protect their own right to protest by exposing people using it as a cover for crime, until police do _."

Don't protests have that obligation no matter what police do? Isn't your answer deflection from what protesters can control, to others that they can't?

@24: Do we pay protestors healthy salaries to be professionals at managing protests, or do we do that for police? And would why we expect protestors to compensate for police incompetence?

Guild still running the City. Owns the Council, which rolled over in collective bargaining and lost on reform (if it really wanted it). And Mayor Wuss... For shame. Robards should spank the City, but its maneuvering roundy-go-round delivers just enough. Is it soup yet? New cop-relationship, same as the ol' cop-relationship.

@notmyopic
If citizens are obliged to report trouble makers at a legal protest, shouldn't we expect the paid public employees (police) to do their part and report their coworkers who use excessive force on legal protestors? And that never happens.
When the police are threatened, many turn into thugs. And they're threatened because protestors don't like thugs. Rarely will a cop put the constitution and citizens' rights ahead of their goals (clear the street, disperse crowd). They leave that up to the courts and taxpayers end up paying for lawsuits.

@#1: “Then the City Council can do its job…by holding hearings to investigate why some protests get attacked by the SPD (WTO in downtown, George Floyd protests on Capitol Hill) whilst others do not (George Floyd protests in West Seattle)“: tensorna, My family and I joined the protest of the brutal police murder of George Floyd in the Alaska Junction in West Seattle. It was less a protest than a community mourning event. It was attended by many thousands of people, including hundreds of children from babes in arms to toddlers in strollers to teenagers, to grey hairs like us. It was a sad and beautiful event, and entirely non-violent on the part of all. The police presence was very low key. One can certainly debate police tactics, but to accuse the police of “attacking” a non-violent event is ridiculous.

@28: I lived at Alaska Junction at that time. I well remember that protest, and several others, including one which shut down California Avenue entirely. My point was the protests in West Seattle never became violent, even as the Capitol Hill protest immediately became violent. SPD in both locations. I think that's worthy of examination.

@29: “why some protests get attacked by the SPD“ accuses the police of inciting violence by attacking otherwise peaceful protests. I am aware of no evidence of this occurring anywhere in the city. This is separate from examining police tactics once violence is ignited. I was at my office downtown when the WTO violence erupted. That was definitely not instigated by the police, but was a carefully planned and coordinated riot intended to disrupt the meetings.

@30: On Nov. 30, 1999, I was on the street downtown during WTO, as a protestor, and everything was fine until the tear gas erupted. After that, the rowdies decided to mix it up with the cops, who were clearly unprepared. (I blame Mayor Schell and SPD Chief Stamper for this lack of preparation.) SPD then pushed the rowdies up Capitol Hill, until the SPD used helicopters, tear gas, and concussion grenades in residential parts of Capitol Hill that night. All of this was completely unnecessary.

As I wrote @8, I avoided May Day protests in Seattle because those protestors were clearly spoiling for violence. So the SPD is not always at fault, nor have I claimed such. I do want to know why I have witnessed police harassing protestors in Belltown, downtown, and Capitol Hill, but not at larger (and more disruptive) protests in West Seattle. I think the Council should investigate this topic, because it certainly appears the SPD resents protests in certain neighborhoods.

"I avoided May Day protests in Seattle because those protestors were clearly spoiling for violence"

This was in part because Seattle is a magnet for folks who want to provoke police violence in order to make police look bad and SPD is a reliable patsy to serve their agenda. Contrast departments that play it smart:

"At the [Vancouver[ 2010 Winter Olympics, the activists were out in full force; they came from all over the place. It’s worth remembering that most protesters are peaceful; only a very small number are criminals and agitators who smash windows, vandalize the corporate buildings, and so on. Our goal was to communicate this message to the bulk of the protesters: “We’re your friends. We are here to protect your right to protest. We will stand in harm’s way to protect your right to protest.” On opening night we did have to draw a line in the sand, because the anarchists wanted to get into the opening ceremony, and we said there’s not a chance of that happening. The situation became fairly violent. Protesters were heaving barricades and rocks and sticks, and some were actually throwing marbles under the horses to try to cause them to lose their footing. They were spitting in the police officers’ faces—and remember, the officers were wearing soft uniforms with no helmets. In short, the protesters were doing everything they could to provoke a harsh response from the police—but they did not get it. After that incident on opening night, the media coverage became much more favorable. Reporters were saying, “Look at the abuse the police have put up with and the restraint they’ve shown, and they managed to defuse this.”A couple police officers were injured, but no protesters were injured or arrested. The next day, the protesters staged a mini-riot and broke some windows, and we did deploy some cops in riot gear. But by then, there were only about 100 “black bloc” protesters [people who wear black clothing, scarves, ski masks, or other face-concealing items] plus about 100 peaceful protesters. The peaceful protesters didn’t want to be a part of what they had seen the night before. The crowds were totally with us. We made seven arrests that day and more later, and when we started making the arrests, the crowds were chanting “Go VPD, go VPD,” because we had built that credibility."

I have been around four crowd actions in Seattle: The Rodney King verdict (1992), APEC (1993), WTO (1999) and BLM/George Floyd Murder.

Rodney King protests were violent and destructive, mostly in a small part of downtown, but the protest seemed homegrown and, for want of a better word, sincere - at least for the first night. The second night the anarchists got involved, and things got stupid.

APEC was remarkably peaceful, and the police were lauded for their helpful and professional conduct by the people organizing the protests. I don't remember any property damage, but there might have been some minimal damage.

WTO was, as the children say, a clusterfuck. There was definitely an organized violent faction who took over on the very first day, centered on the intersection in front of the Sheraton. Since the majority of the SPD was working on the protest itself, we had cops from neighboring jurisdictions, some of whom were looking for trouble themselves. There were also a lot of out-of-town anarchists (I was walking home from my job in Pioneer Square to my apartment on Pike/Pine when a group with protest signs and baseball bats accosted me by the old City Light building, demanding to know where The Sheraton was. I helpfully directed them down Third Avenue towards King Street Station). But it was all completely predictable, and should never have been hosted in Seattle.

The George Floyd Murder protests were also completely predictable and completely bungled by the city. I think that the CHOP (or whatever it was called) was a good idea that was allowed to linger too long. It should have been a cooling-off period, but instead it became a completely toxic situation.

The thing that people miss about the George Floyd protests is that, outside of downtown and Capitol Hill, there were hundreds of peaceful marches and protests, all over Seattle and the suburbs. My job at that time took me all over the city, and I must have witnessed fifty of them, usually centered around the schools and the less obnoxious churches. Sadly, that all gets lumped under the umbrella of the ridiculous activity in the center of the city.

@2
Is Occupy Wall Street still a thing?
They were barely a thing when they were a thing.

@27, Making what I, or my team, chooses to do contingent on what someone else, or some other group, does is a child's game.

"But Timmy still does X, so I don't have to do Y."

You make exactly that argument. SPD must for protesters to start reporting criminal acts in their midst is that kind of argument. Protesters must for SPD to be obligated to adopt the best crowd control practices is that kind of argument.

What SPD can do regardless, and courts have upheld this, is order and end to a protest if its being used as cover for criminal acts. Courts have repeatedly found, it's a "reasonable" act to preserve the policing power of the state (10th Amendment) and everyone's interest in order over anarchy (a necessary precondition for the exercise of all other civil liberties). So if protesters don't want a brick or bottle thrown from the crowd, property damage perpetrated from the crowd to be a pretext to end the protest, they have a vested interest in rooting out these elements.

Note I said, "from the crowd", not "by the crowd". It's not the crowd doing these things, but individuals, or groups of individuals, using the crowd as cover.

"Everything was fine until the tear gas erupted. After that, the rowdies decided to mix it up with the cops, who were clearly unprepared."

Where in law is the deployment of teargas allowed as a justification for crime? Where is the evidence from neuroscience that teargas alters human understanding of right and wrong or deprives humans of the capacity to refrain from doing wrong?

@35: "So if protesters don't want a brick or bottle thrown from the crowd, property damage perpetrated from the crowd to be a pretext to end the protest, they have a vested interest in rooting out these elements."

Then police also have a vested interest in this, and luckily for police departments there are proven best practices for how to do this that SPD could choose to implement:

"We can assign plainclothes officers into the crowd to follow troublemakers. These plainclothes officers are supported by the uniformed personnel assigned to the event. Plainclothes people identify the people engaged in illegal activity or displaying a weapon, and the commander can deploy their uniformed personnel to go in and grab the bad guys and remove them from the crowd."

But I suppose SPD's answer would be "but but then when we indiscriminately tear gas and blast ball everyone, we'll hit our own guys!

Clown Show (klown' sho) - noun

@36: Police abuse of protesters is not justification for crime, which is why I neither said nor implied it was. In this case, police abuse of protestors with tear gas was the unjustified act which precipitated a whole set of unjustified acts.

@myop "Where in law is the deployment of teargas allowed as a justification for crime?"

Unlawful deployment of tear gas is the crime.

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@39, If a crowd is ordered to disburse and doesn't, then deploying tear gas was not unlawful before the City Council banned the use of tear gas.

Tear gas is deployed to make an area too uncomfortable to occupy, so people disburse.

Once violence or property damage occur using a protest as cover the government may order the protest to disburse.

Tons of precedent from the courts on that.

So that gives protesters every incentive to label every person perpetrating crime with Scarlet C, so to speak.

@41: "Tear gas is deployed to make an area too uncomfortable to occupy, so people disburse.So that gives protesters every incentive to label every person perpetrating crime with Scarlet C, so to speak."

LOL. Look up court precedents on "collective punishment."

Maybe you all should get a room, or go have coffee and fight, fuck, or both.
I am amused by your foreplay by arguing about syntax in comments and not
paying much attention to the subject matter at hand.

Protest Organizers (yes, there is such a term) are responsible for security.
I never saw problems with this when I was in D.C., and protests were taken seriously.

My guess is, they spent 5 years worth of budget on the blast Balls to get a discount,
and now can't return them for having taken too long, and can't find a way to justify
such a big hit in their budget.
There is no way we as citizens should allow this policy to become law. Especially the
part where no one can sue the Cops for personal injury or death due to their use.

@43: SPD's motivation is unfortunately far worse than worry about fiscal embarrassment. The department, especially the leadership, is full of MAGATs and authoritarian personalities who chose the job for the wrong reasons.

One of the worst symptoms is their attitude toward what they see as the wrong type if protestors - this is the East Precinct incident commander as reported by KUOW: "Tempers flare. Mahaffey, the incident commander, shouts that he will not give in to protesters."

He's reacting to the obvious suggestion to allow the protestors to peacefully march past the precinct.

The job is to "concierge," but a lot of SPD officers and brass believe or want the job to be to "control."