U.S.|Seattle Protests: Fires and Tear Gas as Thousands March Through City
Protesters also marched in Los Angeles and Aurora, Colo., in a show of solidarity with protesters in Portland. In Seattle, they smashed windows and set fires.
SEATTLE — After weeks of escalating confrontations between protesters and federal authorities in Portland, Ore., a crowd of about 2,000 people mobilized in Seattle on Saturday, marching through the streets and clashing with the police.
Three police officers were injured, including one who was hospitalized with a leg injury caused by an explosive, and 25 protesters were arrested as of early evening, the police said.
Carrying signs such as “Feds Go Home” and shouting chants of “No justice, no peace,” the protesters stopped at the site of a future youth detention center and lit buildings there on fire. Some smashed windows of nearby businesses.
The police confronted the crowd in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, deploying flash grenades and pepper spray before they began taking people into custody.
Bipasha Mukherjee, 52, of Kirkland, Wash., said she has been protesting on the streets since May and said it was worrisome to her to see such aggressive tactics by the police.
“This is not the country I immigrated to,” said Ms. Mukherjee, who arrived from India more than 30 years ago. “It feels like we are rapidly becoming a fascist state and a police state.”
Michaud Savage of Seattle said the protests there were aimed at both local authorities and the deployment of federal officers who have waged a crackdown against a long-running protest in Portland. Mr. Savage said the law enforcement tactics in Portland, which have included the use of tear gas and crowd-control munitions, were dangerous and inappropriate.
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“It’s a very hard slide in an extremely violent direction,” Mr. Savage said as he washed his eyes of pepper spray and nursed a wound on his arm from a flash grenade.
The aggressive actions of federal agents in Portland also galvanized protesters in other cities, including Los Angeles, where protesters clashed with police outside of a federal building, and in Aurora, Colo., where a hectic scene played out as demonstrators marched along an interstate highway.
During that protest, someone drove a car into demonstrators, the Aurora Police Department said, although it was unclear if the car struck any protesters. The police said a protester had also “decided to fire off a weapon,” which struck at least one other person. That person was taken to a hospital and was in stable condition, the police said, and a second person later showed up to the hospital with a graze wound.
In addition to marching in solidarity with the Portland protesters, the demonstration in Aurora was also in response to the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old massage therapist who died several days after officers put him in a chokehold last summer.
Mr. McClain’s death was one of several that have occurred in police custody around the country that received fresh attention following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. The Floyd case ignited mass protests that drew millions to the streets in dozens of cities, but the demonstrations waned in most places.
Seattle and Portland, however, have seen extended demonstrations. Seattle protesters at one point laid claim to several blocks of the Capitol Hill neighborhood and declared an autonomous zone. After a series of shootings there led the police to clear the area, protests had subsided.
Protests in Portland, meanwhile, have continued, with some of the heaviest demonstrations around federal buildings in the city. After President Trump issued an executive order to protect statues and federal property, the Department of Homeland Security deployed tactical teams to the city, beginning a series of clashes that have resulted in injured protesters, inspector general investigations and calls from local leaders for federal agents to leave.
Protest crowds in that city have swelled into the thousands, and demonstrations there were continuing. This week, federal officials deployed a tactical team to Seattle, and protesters cited that development as one reason for Saturday’s demonstrations.
While the Portland protests have centered in downtown, the demonstrations on Saturday roamed areas east of the downtown core, where the city’s federal courthouse is.
Aimee Ortiz and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs contributed reporting from New York.
