SEATTLE: "THIS IS WHAT A POLICE STATE LOOKS LIKE!"
By Key Martin
Seattle
After the WTO had to shut down because most delegates couldn’t get through protests on Nov. 30, the demonstrations continued throughout the week.
Police carried out mass arrests on Dec. 1, jailing some 500 people. National Guard troops buttressed police lines used to blockade streets for blocks around the Convention Center and posh hotels like the Four Seasons.
Pointing toward their own protests, activists chanted, "This is what democracy looks like." Pointing toward the lines of troops and riot-clad cops, demonstrators chanted, "That is what a police state looks like."
Big "Free Mumia" banners were visible throughout the marches. Throughout the protests here there was evidence of the growing struggle to stop the execution of this well-known African American political prisoner and win him a new trial.
Many protesters—predominantly youths—joined a Steel Workers union march to the Seattle docks on Dec. 1. The spirit of unity showed, as did a growing sense of solidarity between the youths and the unionists of all ages.
When more than 1,000 youths later marched away from the docks toward downtown, chanting "No to WTO," they were still outside the "no protest zone." But police assaulted them anyway.
Cops jumped off armored vehicles, firing tear gas, percussion grenades, and plastic and wooden bullets.
Police also tear gassed those caught in rush-hour traffic, in stores, buses and on the streets. One 5-year-old child was in intensive care after she was trampled by those fleeing the gas attack.
Doctors and other medical workers reported that police had trashed their equipment. And they added that no emergency medical crews were dispatched, even for an elderly man in a wheelchair who was severely gassed.
Police blocked Swedish Medical Center to prevent injured demonstrators from seeking treatment.
Police forced groups of young people down streets into "pincer" traps, then tear gassed and arrested them.
The head of the Central Labor Council, Ron Judd, was on the phone with City Hall for an hour seeking the release of 50 protesters. The activists had reportedly been gassed in police custody while they were forced to lie on the ground.
Despite mass arrests, protests continued late into the night, as people continued to join marchers headed to the Capital Hill district overlooking downtown.
Residents and shop owners—including many lesbian, gay, bi and trans people who live or work in the district—described what they called a "police riot." Witnesses said cops even beat residents who were taking out their garbage or parking their cars. They made any reporter who described their brutal work a target.
Capital Hill residents—gay and straight—marched together on Dec. 2 to protest this police violence.
On Dec. 3, a 10,000-strong labor march defied the "no protest zone."
On Dec. 7, Seattle Police Chief Norman Stamper announced his resignation following widespread denunciations of the use of violence against demonstrators by his police department.
