“I don’t think the strategy would be effective with the crowds we are dealing with late at night,” he says. Mahaffey responds to the group, this time including Diaz and Best. In a separate email thread that doesn’t include Diaz or Best, Mahaffey’s deputies confer. “I can identify the officers, about seven total, to start extensive outreach to all ethnic and demographic organizations to start working on building trust.” “We have been in crisis mode,” Diaz writes. An “immovable” barricade trucked in from Joint Base Lewis McCord that protesters dismantle in 20 minutes.ĭurkan is losing patience, and Chief Best knows it.Īround 10 p.m., Adrian Diaz, an assistant chief who, months later, would replace Best as the department’s interim leader, emails a small group, including Mahaffey and Chief Best, with a fresh suggestion: Engage the crowd. The police have shifted tactics daily, but to those watching from the center, the changes look cosmetic. The operations center is the city’s nervous system in times of crisis, a hub where police radios click and beep, and giant screens broadcast live video feeds from Capitol Hill. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and her staff have watched these nights unfold from the Emergency Operations Center in Pioneer Square. Her doctor will tell her that she died three times before they were able to fully revive her. Later in the night, a police blast ball hits a young woman named Aubreanna Inda in the sternum. The clash between police and protesters intensifies. “We will not abandon one of our facilities to those who are intent on damaging or destroying it,” he writes.Īt 8:20 p.m., a 31-year-old man drives into the crowd. Mahaffey addresses the rumor in a department-wide email sent that evening. He sleeps little these days, sending emails at all hours. He is described as smart, a little calculating, and reliable. Mahaffey, the incident commander for the protests, has been with Seattle Police since 1992, when he was a patrol officer. Mayor Jenny Durkan predicts a “summer of love.” There are speakers, and free food, and free coffee. There are no leaders in this autonomous zone. And six blocks of Pine Street become the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, an unpoliced encampment that is part protest, part performance, and part social experiment. Within the department, there is disbelief and a feeling that they surrendered the castle.īut the immediate result is peace: The protesters march past. On the eleventh day, in a move that surprises even the Seattle police chief, officers at the East Precinct pack their guns and case files and drive away on armored trucks. A yellow-greenish haze drifts through the neighborhood. People return night after night, undeterred by cops shooting blast balls and spraying chemical gases. Most protests wane, but this one grows stronger. In Seattle, demonstrators face off with police at their outpost in the bohemian Capitol Hill neighborhood. George Floyd has been murdered by police in Minneapolis, and the video of his death is so shocking that people across the nation pour onto the streets in protest.
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