Capitol Hill residents and businesses sue city of Seattle for failing to disband CHOP

[brooklynite]

Seattle Times

A group of Capitol Hill residents and businesses filed a class-action lawsuit Wednesday against the city of Seattle for the “extensive harm” they’ve faced as a result of CHOP, or the Capitol Hill Organized Protest.

Demonstrators have occupied several blocks around the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct and Cal Anderson Park for about two weeks, since the police left the precinct following standoffs and clashes with protesters calling for racial justice and an end to police brutality.

Calfo Eakes LLP, the law firm representing the group, said in a statement the lawsuit is “not a step (their) clients have taken lightly,” adding that they stand with the Black Lives Matter movement and support demonstrators’ right to free speech and assembly. The plaintiffs include owners of apartment buildings in the area and local businesses such as Car Tender, Northwest Liquor and Wine, Sage Physical Therapy and Tattoos and Fortune. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

“This lawsuit does not seek to undermine CHOP participants’ message or present a counter-message,” the lawsuit says. “Rather, this lawsuit is about the constitutional and other legal rights of Plaintiffs … which have been overrun by the City of Seattle’s unprecedented decision to abandon and close off an entire city neighborhood, leaving it unchecked by the police, unserved by fire and emergency health services, and inaccessible to the public at large.”

[The Magistrate]

1. They Have A Point, Sir

This has outlived any usefulness it might have had.

When the city closes it down, great care will have to be taken to ensure that any violence is not initiated by police. There will be in this place elements equivalent to those in Madison who beat a Democratic state legislator. These will be quite eager to put themselves in the wrong, and wise policy would be to let them do that, and to be seen to be doing that, before police use any force beyond their simple presence.

[LisaM]

2. I know someone whose co-worker lives across the street.

She's not getting any sleep; he says she's completely stressed out (not that it matters, but she is a youngish Black woman).

[Jake Stern]

3. Good

The Mayor and city abandoned them and need to pay for their inaction in allowing this crap to go on for as long as it did.