Former Seattle police chief Carmen Best said on a podcast this week that the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) zone during Seattle’s Black Lives Matter uprising was more violent than the media depicted.
Best told Jerry Ratcliffe on his podcast “Reducing Crime” that “destructive behavior” in CHOP was not adequately documented by the media, which resulted in people thinking it was “peaceful.” She continued:
And the other thing that I found very curious during that time frame was that the destructive behavior, for whatever reason, I’m not sure if there’s a political reason or otherwise, did not get the level of publicity or media attention as … I would read stories about the peaceful protests. I go, ‘Well, part of it was peaceful.’ But I was standing 20 feet away from a hail of rocks. I was looking right at them hail down, feet from me.
CHOP, which later became known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), was six blocks long. BLM protestors established the area after the police retreated from its East Precinct. Two people were killed in the area and there were several shootings. Businesses and residents sued the city over the summer for not taking action on the lawless protest ground.
The former chief said there was a great deal of “gaslighting” by the media. National outlets often attempted to conceal the madness inside the autonomous zone. The New York Times defined it as a “homeland for racial justice” in an article with the headline “Free Food, Free Speech, and Free Police.” CNN said conservative media “grossly exaggerated” the violence in Seattle.
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