The street racing was caught on the SDOT traffic camera at the intersection
UPDATE: A scene from bodycam video released by SPD Wednesday night
The Seattle Police Department has declined to provide additional information about the street racing call and directed CHS to the public disclosure process to access its reports on the hours before Sunday morning’s shooting that sent four people to the hospital at Broadway and Pike.
CHS examination of East Precinct radio traffic reveals commands given to officers responding to the street racing scene starting around 1:30 AM to deal with the growing crowds that eventually numbered in the hundreds and the final minutes before gunfire broke out as the speeding cars and onlookers had mostly cleared from the area.
UPDATE 7/27/2023 6:00 PM: Seattle Police says one victim in the shooting has died. The woman in her 20s was reported shot in the head before being treated at Harborview.
UPDATE 7/28/2023 8 AM: The victim has been identified as Essence Greene, 20.
UPDATE 7/26/2023 7:00 PM: SPD has taken the unusual step to release bodycam video showing the crowd as officers arrived at the original 1:30 AM call. “Initial attempts to disband the crowd were met with resistance,” SPD writes. “Officers remained in the area to respond to life-safety events.”
CHS reported here on the Sunday just before 4 AM shooting that police say happened as large crowds gathered to watch “sideshow” activities with drivers spinning donuts and peeling out on the busy intersection. The shooting happened outside the fences of the Capitol Hill Block Party and hours after the second day of the festival. Four people were reported injured including a woman in critical condition after being shot in the head. There were no arrests.
According to East Precinct radio dispatches, police were first called to the intersection just before 1:30 AM as a crowd of around 50 people had gathered outside the Block Party fences and the 76 service station where around two dozen cars began to take over the street in what the dispatcher described as a “chronic” issue. One person had reportedly threatened to shoot an employee.
Five minutes later, the “disturbance” was escalated to a “Priority 1” response due to the dangerous driving activities and the first SPD car made its way to the scene.
Around 1:40 AM, East radio dispatch reminded responding officers that “nobody’s getting out” of their patrol cars as dispersal commands issued at the intersection were being ignored. “They’re not listening,” a responding officer reported saying the intersection was being blocked by a growing crowd of pedestrians and people with bikes amid the dozens of cars.
A disengage command was issued as SPD officers reported some in the crowd had started climbing on the police vehicles. Support was called in as the crowd began to pelt police with items. “Objects are coming from everywhere,” the officer radioed.
At 1:46 AM, officers from other precincts had been called to the scene for backup to monitor the crowd. “Recommend staying your vehicle,” one East Precinct update said followed by another more urgent call as the crowd continued to grow and disobey police commands — “All officers back in your vehicles now!”
By this point, multiple dispersement announcements had been made but drivers were “continuing to do donuts,” according to an East Precinct radio update.
The situation continued to play out in a similar fashion for the next hour as more onlookers gathered and the drivers continue to speed around the intersection. Around 2:46 AM, property damage was reported in the area but officers were told not to engage — “Only going in for life safety, no property damage.”
Another 911 caller reported a man with a gun amid the crowd.
By 3 AM, one hour before the shooting, there were still “multiple vehicles” reported in the street and the crowd was getting bigger as bars emptied out and word spread of the sideshow, growing to more than 200 onlookers.
At 3:20 AM, officers were directed to continue “waiting where you’re at.” Cars were reportedly speeding and spinning donuts still around 3:30 AM — about 10 minutes later, most of the vehicles were reported to have cleared out and the crowds were quickly dissipating.
Around 3:44 AM, officers from the West and South Precincts were released by the scene and the road was reported clear with the remaining crowds milling about area sidewalks and leaving the area. Then, all officers were directed to stand down and clear out of Broadway and Pike.
Ten minutes later, the first gunfire was reported.
SPD says it continues to investigate the shooting but has announced no arrests.
Meanwhile, questions remain about the decisions made by SPD and East Precinct command Sunday morning on a weekend with the department’s resources stretched thin with multiple large events in the city and ongoing staffing issues and in a neighborhood where SPD declared a “red zone” and refused to police during the 2020 protests.
The department denied a request for information on the street racing response and directed CHS to wait for the report using the city’s public disclosure system. A department spokerson didn’t address the decision to not engage with the racers but did direct CHS to a previous statement about its thin weekend ranks.
UPDATE 7/27/2023: The Seattle Police Officer’s Guild union says some of its officers staged a “sick-out” on the busy weekend. Union president Mike Solan said only about half of the 80 officers that would have been typically staffed over the weekend showed up for work in an ongoing dispute with the city over a new contract.
City officials are reportedly looking into the incident and the SPD response as well as ongoing safety issues around Broadway and Pike. CHS has asked Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office for more information.
UPDATE: The Harrell office responded to our question about SPD’s decisions around the street racing gathering with a statement saying “any loss of life or serious injury is cause for concern and reason to review SPD approach, strategy, and tactics.”
“SPD staffing is well below where it needs to be, creating new challenges especially following a number of large events,” the statement reads. “Mayor Harrell is committed to reversing SPD’s historic staffing shortage, and we will continue to pursue efforts to hire the right kind and right number of officers.”
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I feel like these street racers and the crowds they attract might be the new worst people ever.
Seriously. Who finds that entertaining? Car go screech. Car go vroom.
The “Fast and Furious” franchise encourages the behavior and most police are standing down.
I watched a video of the crowd pushing back on the cops and throwing barricades and bottles. The mob was wild rabid animals.
Rubber bullets and stingball grenades would have been quite effective
Cars have always been dangerous and promote some of the worst and most destructive behaviors.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan-history/2015/04/26/auto-traffic-history-detroit/26312107/
The police in this city continue to show why they are so worthless. They stand around and watch people get shot because they are too scared to patrol the streets. They hide in their cars like cowards, it’s crazy people still respect police. They’re 3 blocks from this incident and refuse to help. All they want are paychecks and then they drive back to snohomish where they live.
… were you here for CHOP?
You following CHOP as a bewildered spectator does technically qualify as ‘being here’ I guess…yes, I suppose spectators understand what they watched at a distance.
after living here through the summer of 2020 and seeing how the activists viciously attacked police it’s no surprise that SPD now errs on the side of doing nothing.
tell me you weren’t there without telling me you weren’t there
I very much was there. And yes, calling African American police officers the N word or “uncle Toms” or saying all police are wife beaters IS vicious. I remember activists like TK, Taati, Rio ALL saying these vile things.
1st amendment protected speech… Hmm…
Activists “viciously attacked” police by chanting at them and refusing to disperse, after police viciously attacked activists, and the neighborhood at large, with tear gas and rubber bullets. Not quite the same thing.
You forgot to mention that some in the crowd were throwing projectiles at the police.
Renfield would smack you for stealing his bit.
Yeah the vicious attack of someone lifting a pink umbrella that made them panic and start gassing the neighborhood
Wow, first I’ve heard of this!! Could I get a link or a source to the vicious attacks? Because I mostly remember police grabbing umbrellas and gassing the whole neighborhood.
And if they “did something” there would be video of it and claims of overreaction. They are in a no win situation. And yes, it’s the natural response to what happened during CHOP. The bad actors in this are the assholes who drive their cars like maniacs and people who bring guns to a night of fun. But no, let’s blame the police.
OK, I’ll bite – should they have gone out and pepper sprayed the crowd and/or billy clubbed those who didn’t disperse? Because that’s what they have to do once they decide to intervene (and I for one wouldn’t really have a problem with that, but a whole lot of folks who comment here sure as hell would have).
Lmao, nearly half the comments on any SPD related thing amounts to ‘we need more cops period and on top of that, they need to do whatever it takes for order’ a variety of different ways without joking about ‘whatever”, and despite comments on a neighborhood blog taking exception to that proposition, SPD aint reading the comments that kiss their ass or want to kick their ass.
Fwiw, if a quarter of your coworkers quit, retired, transferred because they were milking the system and actually hate crowd control despite every advantage with equipment, training, comms and a head full of toughguy bravado, you think theres an appetite for it? A duty bound appetite? Lmao, cmon man, nothing supports your copium laced thoughts on this.
You didn’t answer my question, which was a practical one. How would you have addressed this incident? Also please feel free to kiss my tuchus (which, by the way, I would happily say to your face).
Why would I ever be the CO of state forces in a rhetorical question?
You don’t need to be the CO to think like a CO, which is what you’re gonna need to do if you’re going to come up with a functional solution. Spewing a bunch of cocky chutzpah isn’t helpful, and if you can’t imagine a better police force, you can’t help build one. It’s hard to tell what you think at all, since you aren’t answering the question. Put your big kid pants on and answer the question. How would you have done better?
It’s hard to answer because you either have to accept that Seattle has become full of violent, insolent little shits who are utterly ungovernable without some level of force, or you have to accept that on any given night you might just have to deal with it yourself.
Answer the question.
Lol, unlike you, I dont have to confine myself to metagaming and litigating any of this on a neighborhood blog. I have been and always be on the opposite side of riot control and you will always be here fishing to win an unactionable rhetorical argument for yourself.
Look at your goofy ass rhetoric riding on a false dichotomy of what I have to admit – you arent even good at your hobby.
Conversation on digital platforms is pretty common these days. Conversation is essential for democracy to survive. You are refusing to participate by answering basic questions for the sake of debate. Debasing opposing viewpoints and slandering in public spheres is a pretty fascist stance, but it’s unsurprising. The further left you go in this town, the closer people look like they want true, autocratic fascism.
And what’s this about metagaming? Something something glass houses and stones?
Agreed. What we have taught (and not taught) the generation of older teens and twenty-something’s is coming back to haunt us. I think that generation had to raise itself, given the parental distraction caused by the rise of cell phone entertainment/social media/instant messaging and the decline of public school education.
Regardless of what they (cops) do, people will complain. They’re damned if they do and they’re damned if they don’t.
First and foremost, cops have to protect themselves before protecting others. I for one attended CHOP, and burnouts are currently my thing.
But I know got to behave and I just like to watch. I realize, some, like to cause trouble, so I 100% understand why the cops stay back. I 100% SUPPORT them in chilling and just keeping an eye on things. (I’m not interested in anyone’s opinion of my choices. I’m an adult and know darn well what I’m doing.)
So much for the narrative of “good guys with guns” stopping criminals with guns, huh?
Seattle’s Progressives have made it clear they want no crowd dispersion that uses tear gas or flash bangs. They don’t have enough cops in uniform to form a line and charge the crowd. They are literally out of options. And with a whole neighborhood now hostile to police .. why would they even act? The Council – that voted to defund in 2020 and 2021 – is still 7-2 Progressive (pending this upcoming election). Police are pretty much under orders to stand down by Seattle’s own voters. That’s you fine folks. You Made This.
Amazing that the only options you consider are “do nothing” or some heavy-handed fascist tactics. Cops clear out crowds all the time without “forming a line and charging a crowd,” and tear gas and flash bangs are restricted to violent situations for good reason.
And see other comments re “defunding,” something that never actually happened. The budget has risen. Not to mention Seattle cops are extremely well paid.
Did you watch the video? It’s pretty clear that crowd had no interest in dispersing. Seems like they made the right choice to me. And frankly, throwing shit at your car and dancing on the hood of your car is assault. In just about any other place on this planet, you get yourself an asswhooping for behaving like that. Not in Seattle. We love our punk-ass rebels here because ACAB.
Yeah right – and had they gone in and actually dispersed the crowd using more than a nice ask, you’d have probably been hearing crying about how brutal and awful the police are…
Outnumbered, outgunned, unappreciated. Perfect trifecta..
Overpaid, Overpowered, Over any notions of serving the public, that’s the SPD way
Hard to blame an officer for not disobeying a direct order. Are you implying that you would have engaged a 100+ person crowd on your own and would have been effective? If so, I know there are some hiring opportunities for you to prove you could do better
Seeing as the government has told us all police are under no obligation to protect citizens, from even just one person, your argument holds no weight.
This is the obvious and inevitable outcome of the “defund the police” movement, CHOP and the knee-jerk, virtue-signaling response from the Seattle City Council including Andrew Lewis, Theresa Mosqueda, Tammy Morales, and Dan Strauss who are up for re-election. They have destroyed this city with their stupid, ideological BS. Vote them all out!
Totally flawed logic. If the police are trying to make the case for why they are essential, they are doing a poor job. Here they were just sitting around watching people recklessly endangering the community. People are expected to do their jobs, even if their feelings get hurt, especially when that job is keeping others safe.
“People are expected to do their jobs,”…until, of course, they DO their jobs, then I can shred them for it.
But for the sake of argument, let’s say SPD was more active in responding. Verbal commands aren’t working, so it’ll need to be physically broken up. We have onlookers throwing projectiles at them, so respondents will need to be in riot gear to protect themselves. And they’re greatly outnumbered, so we’ll need to call in as many officers as available. And it’s in the middle of a nightlife area on a weekend, after a street festival, so there’s a solid chance that many of those in attendance are intoxicated. Many of these sideshows are typically demographically diverse (not your “white guy in muscle car” crowd), so any response is likely to be viewed through a racial lens. And it’s 4 blocks from one of the country’s highest profile 2020 protest zones. Add it up and it’s a powder keg waiting to explode.
Sometimes taking minimal action is the most appropriate response under the circumstances. Stop a hostile group from engaging in a voluntary activity at the expense of lighting the entire neighborhood on fire again or monitor their actions best you can and let things play out. SPD absolutely made the correct call here.
Except, you can expect police to do their job without indiscriminate violence and without tear gassing the entire neighborhood.
This sideshow and drag racing stuff isn’t new. It’s been happening all over the city, but SPD does nothing. The only logical explanation is that SPD wants crimes like this to occur.
There are ways to non-violently stop this from happening in the future. As an idea, if while this sideshow was happening, SPD blocked off surrounding streets to prevent the offending drivers or at least their vehicles from leaving (while still letting the crowd disperse). Then their cars could be impounded. It was at a 4-way intersection requiring four streets to be blocked and one was already blocked for the block party. It requires some thinking and some planning (you know, police work), but all SPD wants are more officers who won’t do anything.
At which point someone in one of the vehicles (who obviously has minimal concern for spectator safety given the activity they’re engaged in) decides that they’ll take the sidewalk out as opposed to being kettled by the police, potentially taking someone(s) out in the process. Congratulations, you just made things worse than if you just let things play out.
Your suggestion about blocking roads is not unique, but an accepted crowd control practice in situations such as this. It was undoubtedly considered, and deemed inappropriate given the circumstances of the incident and the resources available at the time.
D3 Denizen. You got it exactly right.
Well said!
So your picks for Mayor and DA are basically useless because of the city council but you think 9 Sara Nelson types would set things right, despite even 1 Sara Nelson being too vapid to contribute to your aims
So much assuming. Provide a solution please.
Except they were never defunded you muppet.
I miss the old Seattle that was affordable, fun and slightly strange but never felt dangerous. Now it’s like a much more expensive East Oakland sometimes.
let’s all Rock the Vote this year.
It ain’t coming back. We were a humbler bunch back then. Grumpy but chill. The cops sucked back then, too, but we didn’t start shit so often, or at least when people did, we acknowledged what it did to the big picture. People on the outside thought we were more radical and lawless than we actually were. We loved that image because it was funny to imagine, but it meant that the most radical, lawless folks thought we were home for them. They moved here, and their arrogant, unimaginative, myopic response to every problem we have here has forever changed this town. It’s over. It was cool, but things change. There are other cool places to go – pockets of smart, creative, fun people, but they don’t want anyone to know about it, and I don’t blame them.
You must live a pretty sad and lonely life
Sad to lose the old Seattle? Yes, for sure. Lonely is a stretch of an insult, but in the end we’re all just star dust anyway, so even if I was, at least it would on point.
Sorry, why are we name calling right now? Are you attempting to discount my argument that much of our big movements in this town are “arrogant, unimaginative and myopic?” Are you proud of yourself for responding to a complete thought with Trumpian epithets?
“It was cool, but things change. There are other cool places to go – pockets of smart, creative, fun people, but they don’t want anyone to know about it, and I don’t blame them.”
Keep searching for your creative fun people that don’t seem to exist in whatever part of Capitol Hill you live in, I see them all around. Meanwhile, we’re talking about poor police response to an event that was obviously going to have crowd control issues, and the ensuing chaos that left a young woman dead, but yes let’s lament the coolness of the past Seattle 🙄
Well, I hope dehumanizing people you’re annoyed by makes you feel better. It was an aside. Calm down. You, after all, blamed cars, as if traffic control was the issue. I call that an aside. I’m sorry it makes you mad to hear that things were different before you got here.
I hope blaming all of the cities problems on people moving here because supposedly people like you made it seem cool isn’t soul crushing for you 🙄
I just pointed out that reckless car behavior has always been a problem and Seattle hasn’t been the same since they took over our streets 🤷🏻♂️
Don’t get distracted – guns are the problem with this situation. People can’t shoot people without guns.
Most gun owners don’t shoot people. What if we prosecuted the ones that do? Oh yeah, that’d require ending DEI (Deny, Excuse, Ignore) goals and focusing on prosecuting criminals, regardless of what socio-economic class they came from.
No. We need to get rid of all guns.
Feel free to hold your breath waiting for that to happen. In the meantime we need to figure out how to deal with the world as it is.
How’s that going?
Defund the Police?? Hahahahaha The reult is this anarchy!! Enjoy it!!
The cops were there and did nothing. Backwards take.
I think they should have gone in with pepper canisters blazing if the crowd was unwilling to disperse – I suspect you probably feel differently about that, though.
Find other solutions.
Provide other solutions.
I get that uniforms aren’t going to want to walk in when people are pegging them with trash. But when a gun is reported, there are cars doing donuts, and it’s only getting worse… and they still sit around for another hour until a shooting happens, when they have bulletproof vehicles with lights and sirens right there? That’s negligent.
Bollards and serious speed bumps would seriously curtail this! I thought Seattle was all for non-carceral solutions?
Yes, but SDOT opposes bollards, and puts in speed bumps that are flatter than pancakes. So, we get cars doing donuts in intersections, cars driving through “pedestrianized” areas, and cars (including SPD) driving at reckless speeds throughout the city.
Reactoids would sooner support SAW platforms on bearcats with live ammo hosing the crowds down in a lead bath than ever see even one street be blocked off to cars, that is how badly they approach anything.
…and your solution is?
PS – live ammo isn’t my solution, but pepper spray canisters seem pretty appropriate to me in this situation. Your solution is????
You have not provided one alternative in this conversation. You offer nothing but trash talk, which kind makes me think you have no interest in having a society at all.
this is what happens when all the police retire or quit because of the “Defund Police” stuff. If you are needing the police, you want them there, but if there aren’t enough police you LOOSE.
Read the article. Police were there. They just didn’t stop anything.
Then, SPD and the mayor tried to say they don’t have enough cops, even though they had a bunch of cops there who didn’t stop anything.
And SPD was never defunded. Their funding has only increased. They just don’t use that money to stop crime.
On point – the amount of absolutely bafflng excuses they wouldnt accept from a 5 year old or are just straight up fiction is all these reactionaries trade in because they cant face the music that negelct and austerity backed by force will inevitably fail and thats all we have and thats all they want.
…and your solution is?
WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?
Police were never defunded, thanks for trolling though. What you’re seeing is the result of Bruce trying his hand at union busting.
Police aren’t the only city employees without a contract since Bruce came aboard a year and a half ago. Wait until the utility employees start staging sick outs or possibly even strike. Everyone will feel that.
Not sure what Bruce goes to get out of it except for unelected.
Seems fairly obvious that there is a connection to the defund movement, which not only defunded, but also delegitimized, demonized, and demoralized the police force, is linked to the current dystopia and spike in crime in progressive cities, but it is hard for some to connect the dots when they are blinded by ideology. Police are essential to maintaining a civil society. We need a better police force not a diminished one. Who would want to take on the risk to be a police officer in the current environment? The leftists always want to blame the police for everything that goes wrong, but if they were to look in their mirror, they would see that their own hands are covered in blood of the marginalized people they are supposedly trying to protect. Seattle used to be a city of intelligent people and moderation before the stupid people and zealots ran it into the ground. We need a course correction. I am hoping we get one in this next election.
What does it say about a supposed intelligence and moderation that it got bodied by zealous idiots over the last 10? 20? 30? 40? 50!? 60!!!! years?
Pray tell, is former community outreach darling of SPD, Denise Bouldin suing Leftists for mistreatment among other things?
I’m sure, beyond the traffic cams, there are plenty of social media photos and videos of the vehicles. Do the investigative work. Track down the vehicles, ticket or impound every one of them. Do this every time street racing or sideshows take place. Gather the video evidence, and then in the light of day, issue tickets and impound vehicles.
+1 on this. And if we need to make the laws more punitive for this activity, we should do so.
I’m not entirely sure what the police were supposed to do here. It’s clear that the crowd and racers gave no fucks about their presence. Yet if they try to push their vehicles through it’s going to look bad and they’ll be howls of protest. We want less draconian police presence, but we want to population to follow orders that are reasonable (this stop blocking a major intersection with incredibly dangerous behavior).
Exactly right. Can’t we assume that the police did take down (or recorded on video) the license plates on the marauding vehicles? The drivers (and any passengers) should be promptly arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Agreed – but that takes staff time (but hells yeah they should be doing that.)
I’m totally down with this, but it’s gonna take a lot of … funds.
We have a lawless zone capable of appearing anywhere on Capitol Hill now. Police are outmanned, outgunned, and all-but-powerless. It’s just as our Defund Comrades wanted.
They have more money than ever but you cant look that in the eye, and you always deflect away from them being the self serving protection racket they obviously are
How long are the police planning to use the “Defund” movement as an excuse for their ineptness? Because the last election was our referendum on it and the defenders lost two major seats. It’s why we elected Harrell, who increased police funding. It’s likely why Sawant isn’t running for re-election. So when do the police and Republicans plan to stop pretending Defund was successful or that this is what Seattle wants? Don’t forget, most of those black bloc kids who got arrested were out of towners, kids from Edmonds, etc… have you seen the rents on Capitol Hill? They aren’t exactly anarchist-friendly. And I see a lot of people saying it was a crowd control issue, but I called the police earlier this year when a guy chased me with a weapon down Broadway and gave them my contact information, and they never bothered to even follow up then, either.
They usually deflect to police having the morale mechanism of toddlers who need the public to adore them to function, and it just gets more and more excusatory for cops and more accusatory towards you, directly you, the longer the convo goes. Look at Below Broadway’s increasingly sullen posts about who is to blame and how to fix it.
…and your solution is?
Liberating you from the Very Online prison you inhabit and showing you a good time in the neighborhood you barely seem to exist in?
I too would love to hear what your solution is. You do seem to be rather adept at name calling and deflection, though.
Define the problem more concretely than ‘a sideshow happened’ and let me know the limits of what you would be up for actively in the flesh.
Where do you wanna start with holistic approaches and what where do you wanna start with direct response by The State starting…next week?
I gotta soft spot for Miller, helped a few folks out there once for a spell, so Ill take as many stabs at ringing up a purchase for a solution youll buy as you want.
huh? Put the pipe down.
You offer nothing. Focus. Do you think a soft-touch, civilian task force would have been able to stop that nonsense? Yes or no? If no, you’re gonna have to explain how a cop, particularly in a defunded world (the one you are calling for) would have done what you are demanding – disperse that crowd. Answer it.
My advice is to give up on getting him/her to provide an answer to your questions. It’s hopeless.
Youre half right zach, I cant answer the question on terms sought for agreement or even arugment and I refuse to offer a half baked and incomplete ezpz 12Threezy solution just to argue in the abyss about feasibility and implimentation and execution of it I dont have a hand in whatsoever.
Ask me good questions, youll get a long winded and overwrought answer that tries to account for a lot, and Ill play nice because its interesting and fun, and there might be a tangible way to connect on it.
Ask me to sell you on a speculative turnkey solution that will absolutely work without any doubt and woo you into a change of heart (before you crush my heart and decide to stick with this janky status quo because you at least know it), Ill do every little annoying thing to deflect towards what I wanna talk about instead.
I wish I didnt have to spell it out like this but some of yall really are delusional about what discourse in the hands of ants on the ground is actually capable of producing, especially those turnkey solutions that are surefire.
It seems like you might be better off on a hill somewhere without an internet connection. Real world problems deserve an attempt to find a solution. Your cynical, arrogant take on discourse isn’t productive, and you can’t avoid a logical test just because it isn’t “what you want to talk about”. You are a sideshow, and you offer nothing but division, a real analog for Sawant.
We can argue forever as to whether Defund did or did not happen. Dollarwise, maybe not. But it’s fact that, after demeaning, detesting (ACAB, right?), and delegitimizing SPD, many officers chose to get the fuck out. Why would they not? A difficult job in the best of times became impossible for many when the community they thought they were serving turned on them. Problems? Sure. Recent tombstone video at East Precinct hideous. Fix the problems, whether systemic or individuals. But, meanwhile, we are left with a police force just a bit above half of what it was. And we all are seeing the effects. I can’t imagine that the Defund folks are not doing their happy dance, and yet all the while slamming anyone who decries the sorry state of our thin police capability with “Defund never happened!” Total BS.
Somehow the police have the latest military technology to deal with civilians upset about police brutality and murdering of civilians, but apparently people doing donuts and cars and being elated and drunk after a music festival is just too much power for SPD to handle 🙄
One of the coolest things Ive ever done is build a cultural identity around an object providing liberty and freedom, while also allocating vast sums of wealth towards infrastructure supporting the cultural identity of liberty and freedom, only for that to backfire entirely in my face at an irrevocable point and cause all sorts of small problems like sideshows, and big problems like the world becoming inhospitable towards humanity.
You don’t need to thank me for my valiant effort on this whole project, you’re already living the dream.
USA! USA! USA!
Reading these comments, I can’t get my head around what people wanted in this situation.
Frankly, they were standing by and watching in case something went awry and waited for the dumbasses in their cars to disperse — while also collecting evidence. Presumably, they got license plate numbers and video (there are multiple surveillance cameras in that area) and will go after the violators in a less heated environment.
My idiot nephew got into a police chase and when the cops stopped following him, he thought he was so cool… until they showed up with a warrant for his arrest and a tow truck to impound his car. They had video from the police car and multiple surveillance cameras. He ended up pleading guilty, went to jail for four months and lost his license for two years.
The shootings happened afterward, when the crowd was dispersing.
Sorry, I don’t blame SPD on this one.
What did you expect patrol officers to do with an uncooperative crowd that significantly outnumbered them? They aren’t allowed to use tear gas or pepper spray to disperse uncooperative crowds (if you’re an individual citizen though, you can use pepper spray). The officers would have needed to wade into the crowd, contact a few uncooperative individuals, take them to the ground, cuff them, and extract them from the crowd. Of course, witnesses would complain about the violence inherent in the system. The only other safe option is to ask nicely, “Please disperse, this is an illegal gathering/event”. This is our liberal city, as you wish.
Nailed it. Sometimes cops have to use force – the question is now much and under what circumstances.
The police need better crowd dispersement tools. I recommend whole milk squirt guns and egg launchers. No one will stick around after getting “milked” or egg on their face.
Maybe Nickelodeon slimers can be installed over every intersection in Seattle.
And yes it must be whole milk. 1%? Fuggedaboutit….
The hypocrisy from the anti-police crowd is thick in here. They are now angry that the police didn’t disperse the crowd. Since nobody can win with them people why should anyone care about their opinion?
Maybe D3 candidates who are hoping to pick up the Sawant vote, but other than that, nobody.
Nah, youre fixating on the wrong thing entirely on purpose to confirm your priors – cops themselves sell a story about being the thin blue line between folks like you and the unvaried chaos of of folks like me, but then there is routine example where they do the opposite of their narrative about that.
This wouldnt be such a sore point if police budgets didnt hollow out the rest of city iniative or budget, if use of force incidents (especially the murderous kind) werent routinely cops pressing on every advantage in a situation to get away with it, and if cops didnt basically need hero worship to allegedly function at all as people let alone civil servants.
Basically pointing out fraudlence doesnt mean you support them doing stuff that would displease yourself to dispell the fraudlence amonst people who would be very pleased by that, those comments are for you and your cohort to pack it on the vapid engagement you have with policing and societal issues at large.
I think you’ll find that if you try to say more with fewer words, there isn’t much meat in your argument.
If crowd control on Capitol Hill has become unmanageable by the city, then the city needs to stop issuing permits for crowded events on Capitol Hill
Yeah let’s let the few ruin for the many.
I think that happened anyway? The crowd shot itself 4 times.
https://youtu.be/W3jKnzqCn-E
Here is a police car view of the crowd coming after their cars with bottles, barricades and causing the cops to retreat. They looked like really friendly neighbors just out for some fresh air.
https://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2023/07/26/crowd-obstructs-police-response-on-broadway/
Wow, that video is pretty insane of the police car having to back up. What on earth is wrong with those people? What a-holes.
The amount of commenters that feel comfortable comparing the police response to protests against police brutality and this event is absolutely appalling, although it’s given me an opportunity to know who the truly deplorable commenters are at least…
Their fighting for their right to partyyy?
Funny, out of the same mouths – “ACAB! We hate cops and don’t want them around!!! Raarrrrr!” and also “Jeez! Where are the cops and why didn’t they do anything?”
Have a plant in the crowd throw a bag of nails into the street. Confiscate cars
It’s amazing how sensitive the really pro police crowd is. Chop was 2 weeks of idiocy 3 years ago. Jfc. Set up a taskforce to go impound the cars the next day with enhanced charges for drivers and participants. Failure to disperse should be a higher class misdemeanor and then felony for subsequent times. Second impound is permanent. The problem will stop almost overnight
Pffffffff. Sensitive? I think what you are hearing is exasperation with hypocritical, illogical arguments that have effed up this town. We all get to live with the results.
Pro police? I don’t think anyone is like, “pro” police. What you are seeing here is an attempt to solve these issues, and it appears we need an authority to handle the humans in our town. Call them “police” or “task force” or put them in pink dresses, I don’t care, but someone is gonna need a can of pepper spray and a baton when shit gets nasty, and that’s just getting impossible to dispute. If people respect a little rule of law, I don’t think anyone cares what organization is. It just seems like we’ve proven that we can’t be trusted with the freedom of not having an authority. Nobody is licking boots here.
Exactly right! I have been saying this for decades, since the 1980s, that bad thoughts lead to bad outcomes so we must push bad thoughts out of our heads unless they become true.
For instance, after the ’95 Slide, I said “It doesn’t get any better than this!” and for all of us Mariner fans it hasn’t. I don’t tell people I caused the problems of the M’s but it’s true, that’s how things happen. Now I only think positively and productively about them and have a lot of solutions that I’ve sent to Dipoto directly and am hoping he implements. Now he doesn’t have to do them and he probably won’t, but because I thought of them and sent them to him, I am sure the universe will kick in at some point and make it so. The universe wouldn’t work one way in politics and policy outcomes and drastically different with baseball, would it?
If so, then I am just going to double down on productive and positive thoughts and share them with you.
What a fantastically creative way to look at the world! OMG that’s exactly what I was getting at. Are you going to the old white conservatives gathering this weekend? No, you’re staying up on Snark Mountain? Bummer, we’ll miss you.
Hey now, it is hard to leave Snark Mountain if there are only 3 roads off of it.
Ugh, that Mike Solan dude was all over the news blaming the “defund movement nonsense” for the fact that his officers staged a sick out. He said the defund movement is why we’re dealing with the lack of protection we have now. Seriously? A movement that happened three years ago and failed spectacularly on a national level is why your police can’t do their jobs? Give me a freaking break. What he’s admitting is that his officers got their feelings hurt and are now refusing to do their damn jobs. They never lost their funding. In fact, it greatly increased. What a joke.
Forget about it, It’s Seattle Jake
They are laughing at you.
It’s the same in Portland Oregon. The police show up late and then do nothing.
why should the cops intervein? They will get sued and the political wonks will not back them.
Man when I street raced I pooped in my pants!!
So did I!!!
Crowd harasses cops who then can’t stop a killing. Cops hang Trump flags and tombstones of kids shot by cops. Sawant targets black police chief and tries to defund the department. Police chief quits in disgust. Cops keep covering up for bad cops. Crime skyrockets, cops bail on work during a crazy weekend, etc, etc……… This is so dysfunctional that its getting people killed every night. Seattle citizens and their police need to completely start over from the beginning. We’re ALL to blame for it getting to this point.