Police Action
by guest columnist Sky Callahan
AT ABOUT 8:30 P.M. ON NOV. 30, I arrived downtown by bus, after having worked late. A resident of Belltown, I’d originally planned to make a quick stop at the Bon Marche, then a subsequent stop for groceries at Ralph’s Deli before returning to my apartment near Fourth Avenue and Bell Street.
Upon reaching the Bon, I discovered that a large number of protestors had reoccupied Westlake Plaza, after having earlier dispersed for the purpose of attending a candlelight vigil at Seattle Central Community College. I also noted that a large number of police officers were forming lines around the knot of demonstrators.
Employees of the Bon were applying duct tape to all the entrances for the purpose, I was told, of preventing possible damage from any tear gas assault that might occur. The store was effectively closed for the night, so I lingered outside one of the Fourth Avenue entrances for awhile, intrigued by the scene around me.
At about 8:45 p.m., police issued their first order for the crowd to disperse. This was followed by another order at about 8:50, and a third at 9:00. Each order saw the departure of any number of protestors and, by 9, almost everyone had completely dispersed and the intersection at Fourth and Pine was reopened.
At this juncture, the demonstrators began moving north on Fourth Avenue, toward Denny Way, followed by a large contingent of police. The procession was slow, and someone operating a megaphone informed the crowd that a party would shortly be underway on Minor Avenue.
It seemed quite apparent to me that the group, numbering perhaps 200 at this point, was truly dispersing.
I stopped at Ralph’s Deli to pick up my groceries, and exited the store with two bags. Upon stepping back onto Fourth, I saw that police lines had begun forming alongside of the street on both sides, and I asked an officer if it was possible to continue down Fourth to Bell Street. He assured me there would be no problem, and urged me to continue on. I did so, noticing more and more police were arriving and taking up positions along the street as I walked.
Upon reaching Bell Street, I realized I’d forgotten to pick up soft drinks, and went into a small convenience store on the corner to rectify my oversight. I was in the store perhaps five minutes, and exited to realize that a police line had taken up a position spanning the width of Bell Street where it crossed Fourth.
At this point, I was half-a-block from my apartment, laden with grocery bags, and approached to police officer to ask if I could pass through the line. I explained my purpose, pointing my apartment building out to him, but was denied passage. I was instead directed to retrace my steps one block back to Blanchard, turn east and walk north on Fifth to circumvent the now-restricted area.
I did as instructed, only to find my passage was also blocked at Blanchard. I proceeded to each intersection, only to be turned away at each. I found that the police had completely hemmed in the length of Fourth Avenue between Lenora Street and Bell Street, and were not allowing anyone to pass out, for any reason.
I was eventually directed to speak to a sergeant commanding a line on the west side of Fourth and Blanchard, but this proved to be of no avail. The sergeant told me he’d been given orders to let no one pass in or out, and couldn’t find his commander to allow him to do otherwise.
As I stood there, I saw a line of police in riot gear move toward us, from the west, on Blanchard, and noted that a similar line was forming on the east side of the intersection. As the minutes passed, more helmets and bulletproof shields materialized, and I began to get the sense a baton charge was imminent.
Meanwhile, an increasingly large number of people, both individually and by megaphone, began to assert that they only wanted to leave the area and either go home or go to the party. The police refused to allow them to do any such thing, and a feeling of tension began to rise precipitously.
My own concern was reaching epic proportions. I’d taken to visualizing any number of possible scenarios, and only wanted to get home after a long day at work. I’d been repeatedly assured by a couple of different police officers that I could achieve this goal by going here or going there, only to find I’d become further enmeshed in this situation.
I suppose an increasing alarm began to register on my face as, finally, a young bicycle officer asked to see my driver’s license. It naturally indicated my address, just a block away, and he took it upon himself to escort me past the police line and to Third Avenue. He did so with some concern, as he had no particular authority on the line, and was ostensibly going against the wishes of his sergeant. I suspect that the fact I was carrying grocery bags, reasonably well-dressed, and middle-aged probably convinced him that I had been mistakenly swept up in this situation.
For about the next hour, these protestors were completely trapped in this three block length of Fourth Avenue, and refused permission to exit although there were openly requesting to do so.
I dropped my groceries off at home, and made my way to the Two Bells Tavern, near my apartment building. There, I sat with friends while watching a new police line form just outside the door of the tavern. We would occasionally stick our heads out to see Metro buses taking up positions, and cops milling about in rather massive numbers.
After a bit, the police waded into the crowd they’d trapped, and arrested something on the order (according to newspaper reports) of 140 of them. The Seattle Times states that the arrest were for failure to disperse and pedestrian interference.
No protestor was ever allowed the opportunity to disperse, and had even been engaged in the act of dispersing from Westlake Plaza when they were surrounded and stopped. In fact, after the separation from Westlake, no subsequent order to disperse was ever given.
Additionally, the only pedestrians suffering interference could have been other demonstrators. Several friends and neighbors found themselves swept up in the arrests, having been out to dinner or shopping, or simply taking walks with significant others.
So far as I know, I’m the only person who was ever allowed to leave the scene, and the precise reason why is still something of a mystery to me.
TOMORROW: Nostalgia for nerd-dom.
ELSEWHERE:
