Eh! No big deal. So a bunch of protestors took over six city blocks in central Seattle including a park an a police building. What's all the fuss about?
That is the laughable attitude of the Seattle Times in trying to downplay Donald Trump's claim during his Tuesday debate that an important part of downtown Seattle had been taken over by radicals. The Seattle Times hung their super silly "fact check" premise on the definition of "big" in their Wednesday excuse article by Vonnai Phair in "Trump falsely claims CHOP protesters took over a big part of Seattle."
Former President Donald Trump referenced Seattle’s Capitol Hill Organized Protest during the presidential debate Tuesday night, falsely claiming protesters took over a big portion of the city.
During the debate, Trump was asked if he has any regrets about what he did on Jan. 6, 2021, when he asked his supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol, ultimately leading to an insurrection.
In response, Trump, who was president in 2020 when protesters started CHOP to protest police brutality after the death of George Floyd, said: “When are the people that burned down Minneapolis going to be prosecuted or in Seattle? They went into Seattle, they took over a big percentage of the city of Seattle. When are those people going to be prosecuted?”
So no denial by the the reporter that protestors took over a section of downtown Seattle. His quibble is over the definition of the word "big" as you shall see.
The zone’s size fluctuated, but it essentially occupied about six city blocks surrounding the Seattle Police Department East Precinct building and Cal Anderson Park, extending east to 12th Avenue, west to Broadway, south to East Pine Street and north to East Denny Way.
To most people six city blocks plus a park and police department precinct building would qualify as "big" or would this reporter prefer the word "significant" be used?
In May 2023, a 22-year-old man pleaded guilty to killing a 19-year-old man, Horace Lorenzo Anderson, inside CHOP the night of June 20, 2020. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison, followed by three years in community custody. In June 2021, Isaiah Thomas Willoughby, 36, pleaded guilty in federal court to setting a fire outside the abandoned East Precinct during CHOP, also known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone or CHAZ. He was sentenced to two years in prison. U.S. District Court in Seattle also imposed a three-year period of supervised release after the two-year sentence.
...Ultimately, four shootings, including the killings of Anderson and 16-year-old Antonio Mays Jr., were reported in and around the CHOP zone. No one has been charged in Mays’ death.
Yeah, just a bundle of fun and games in the Seattle CHOP zone back in the day. But, remember, the main thing the Seattle Times wants you to take away is that six block section of the city was NOT "big" so as to desperately but absurdly deny any credibility for Trump.
