Hurling rocks, bricks and even Molotov cocktails, anti-capitalist protesters clashed with police in downtown Seattle on Sunday as May Day mayhem erupted again following a peaceful march.
By 9:45 p.m., at least five officers had been injured and at least nine people had been arrested, Seattle police reported. One injured officer suffered a head injury when he was struck by a rock.
The city unleashed a massive deployment of police officers in riot gear on foot, on bicycles, on horseback and in vehicles to control the crowd of dozens of masked protesters who began massing in Westlake Park for the unpermitted march shortly after 5 p.m.
Unlike previous years, however, police quickly herded the mob of several hundred black-clad protesters out of Seattle’s business district, using a choreographed rolling blockade of bicycle officers and vans to shuttle cops in riot gear ahead of the crowd to cut off escape routes.
Before the night was over, the protesters had been marched out of downtown and into the city’s Sodo industrial area, where fewer targets for destruction were available. Along the way, officers at times doused unruly demonstrators with pepper-spray and fired “blast-balls” to control and disperse the crowd.
By about 8:45 p.m., police had surrounded a thinned-out group of demonstrators in the parking lot of a Costco. There, officers arrested several people, then slowly allowed small groups of the remaining protesters to disperse, while flanking some of them back toward downtown.
An earlier annual May Day March for Workers and Immigrant Rights that culminated outside the U.S. Courthouse ended peacefully and without incident. As that rally winded down, demonstrators largely clad in black clothing and masks started gathering for the planned but unpermitted anti-capitalist march while squadrons of officers in riot gear converged around the shopping area.
Before the group took to the streets, police had reported seeing demonstrators with bolts, rocks and cans of spray paint. One man in the crowd of demonstrators appeared to be openly carrying a handgun in a holster at his side.
Unfurling a large banner that read, “We are ungovernable,” and other signs, demonstrators started marching about 6:30 p.m. They initially appeared confused about which direction to head, before police herded the core of protesters, forcing them northward.
The violence quickly erupted.
As demonstrators marched, some in the crowd shot off Roman candles and other fireworks, while a window was shattered at a Starbucks. Someone tagged a Seattle Department of Transportation vehicle with black spray paint.
Within moments, protesters and police clashed near Fifth Avenue and Pine Street. Some demonstrators hurled rocks and other objects, while police liberally doused parts of the crowd with pepper-spray.
The demonstrators marched into the Belltown neighborhood, as the massive deployment of heavily armed officers flanked and contained them.
About 7 p.m., the bulk of the marchers double-backed, heading south into downtown, where a flurry of clashes erupted. There, some demonstrators hurled rocks and bricks at police, others shot flares. After one officer was reportedly hurt, police issued a dispersal order for the area. Anyone who violated that order was subject to arrest.
Demonstrators kept moving south, through Pioneer Square and skirting the Chinatown International District heading for the stadiums and Sodo.
Police reported some demonstrators hurled Molotov cocktails, although it wasn’t immediately clear whether any of the incendiary devices ignited.
Some officers shot “blast-balls” into unruly pockets of demonstrators as the marchers continued southward.
The events of the evening prompted Mayor Ed Murray to tweet: “Peaceful immigration march earlier today, now we see senseless violence and property destruction from different crowd.”
Last year, Seattle police arrested 16 people during rowdy May Day demonstrations. But police took criticism for heavy-handed tactics during the demonstrations, including a December report that found they sometimes shot “blast-balls” into areas with peaceful demonstrators.
The Seattle Times
![Today’s Highlight in History: On April 24, 1995, the final bomb linked to the Unabomber exploded inside the Sacramento, California, offices of a lobbying group for the wood products industry, killing chief lobbyist Gilbert B. Murray. (Theodore Kaczynski was later sentenced to four lifetimes in prison for a series of bombings that killed three people and injured 29 others.) On this date: In 1877, federal troops were ordered out of New Orleans, ending the North’s post-Civil War rule in the South. In 1915, in what’s considered the start of the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Empire began rounding up Armenian political […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/migration/2023/06/12/5LTPEE42BQ2O25ECG7SKBN4RV4.jpg?w=535 "Today’s Highlight in History: On April 24, 1995, the final bomb linked to the Unabomber exploded inside the Sacramento, California, offices of a lobbying group for the wood products industry, killing chief lobbyist Gilbert B. Murray. (Theodore Kaczynski was later sentenced to four lifetimes in prison for a series of bombings that killed three people and injured 29 others.) On this date: In 1877, federal troops were ordered out of New Orleans, ending the North’s post-Civil War rule in the South. In 1915, in what’s considered the start of the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Empire began rounding up Armenian political […]")