Seattle police, as you likely know, are pretty indulgent when it comes to protest measures.
But the same cannot be said of their Washington State Patrol counterparts, at least when protesters decide to block a highway.
That’s because of the death of Summer Taylor, a 24-year-old who was killed during a highway protest in early July after a vehicle struck her and another demonstrator on I-5.
After that, according to The Seattle Times, state police’s policy of indulging protest groups and closing down the freeway came to an abrupt halt.
That apparently didn’t stop a group known as Seattle Morning March, which marches almost every weekday, from trying to block the road again. Members of the group, The Stranger reported, “say they block traffic to disrupt people living their day-to-day lives, and to bring the Black Lives Matter protest to where those people are.”
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The group’s demands include the resignation of Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, budget cuts for the police department and the reallocation of that money to black organizations, the closing of the city’s juvenile detention center and the dropping of all charges against protesters.
Elisha Ewing, a member of Seattle Morning March, told The Stranger’s Nathalie Graham that the Friday morning march wasn’t supposed to be “spicy.” I’m not entirely sure what all falls under that aegis, but this certainly does:
WARNING: The following video contains vulgar language that some viewers may find offensive.
State patrol is here: pic.twitter.com/2IL4As2L9E
— nathalie graham (@gramsofgnats) September 4, 2020
The demonstrators blocked traffic using their vehicles — nine of which were impounded after the Washington State Patrol broke up the protest.
It’s worth noting Graham wasn’t merely a reporter covering the protests for a left-leaning alternative newspaper. She was actually going gonzo journalism style, covering the whole thing from inside one of the cars blocking the freeway.
And like all gonzo journalism, covering an event in such a manner throws objectivity to the wind, although you might notice this isn’t quite Hunter Thompson: “Freeman, 26, drove the car I was in. Katie Neuner, 25, sat in the passenger seat. Both are Black. A marcher named Erica in her late 20s sat next to me in the back,” Graham wrote.
“As we crested the slight incline of the Ship Canal Bridge, Neuner, dressed in effervescent green pants, euphorically climbed up through the sunroof to look at the traffic snaking behind the march. And then we saw the blockade of WSP vehicles. Neuner sat back down. Freeman slowed, driving toward the shoulder.”
— nathalie graham (@gramsofgnats) September 4, 2020
Graham said state patrol troopers told Freeman to exit the vehicle, as he was being placed under arrest for obstructing traffic. However, he wouldn’t leave. That led to the confrontation you saw in the first video.
At least to Graham, the Washington State Patrol was at fault here, because racism.
Should the Washington State Patrol have busted up this roadblock?
“WSP arrested every Morning Marcher they could identify, and they impounded all the arrested drivers’ vehicles,” her article read. “At least two white women who drove as part of the protest this morning avoided arrest. They told me they were not even stopped.”
In the first video above, one of the protesters can be heard telling a black police officer that he’s a “house n—-.” Even though the video was included in Graham’s story, she failed to mention that detail because, well, shrug emoji.
Some of the chaos from when state patrol arrested protesters. Erica was riding as a passenger with me and was told she was free to go until a different officer said she was “obstructing” pic.twitter.com/qehGiMtnmi
— nathalie graham (@gramsofgnats) September 4, 2020
From 10:30 a.m., traffic was backed up for two miles on I-5 near the city’s Ship Canal Bridge.
Letting a car through because a passenger needs to get to a radiation appointment pic.twitter.com/jCQuhbJ34N
— nathalie graham (@gramsofgnats) September 4, 2020
One of the demonstrators told police that they were “causing a bigger backup than we ever would have” by being at the scene, as well — which seems like an odd admission when you consider the fact that the backup is apparently supposed to “bring the Black Lives Matter protest to where those people are.”
Police have certainly been a prominent feature of these protests, the same with backups on highways. Either that protester is admitting that causing traffic by setting up a roadblock is bad or they shouldn’t be complaining.
All in all, nine people were arrested during the protest.
“The backup [Friday morning] I’m sure was horrific for people sitting in that,” Washington State Patrol spokesman Trooper Rick Johnson told The Times. “We just needed to obviously let them know this is not legal, first of all. That is why we took the action we took today.”
He added there had been an accident on the other side of the road that may have been caused by rubbernecking.
Ewing, she of the spiciness quote, seemed to insinuate the real victory was being alive.
“They got some of our people, our cars, our property,” she said, “But we’ll be back at it. I’m literally breathing right now, and that’s protesting.”
The only chance Ewing or her fellow protesters wouldn’t have been breathing is if there had been some kind of accident or attack on the freeway — which, of course, could have been precluded by not setting up an illegal roadblock on the freeway.
It’s really that simple.
Especially given what’s happened this summer, what the Washington State Patrol did wasn’t just prudent, it was necessary.
No matter how righteous your cause, it’s debased when you cause an illegal roadblock on the highway.
It’s made farcical when you claim, meanwhile, that the real danger came from the police officers putting an end to it.
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