Flash bang grenades. Pepper spray. Bagpipes.
Just another May Day in Seattle.
International Worker’s Day—aka May Day, aka May 1—followed a pattern that Seattleites have grown used to in recent years. The afternoon hosted singing and marching for immigrants and labor; the evening, a surreal carnival of bulldogish policing and property damage by protesters.
Activists rallied at Judkins Park in the Central District Friday afternoon, where they booed Mayor Ed Murray off stage before setting out toward Downtown via Boren Avenue. Seattle streets were flooded with hundreds, possibly thousands, of people bearing signs and bellowing chants, led by a contingent of native dancers. Kimberly McRae, a marcher who is the co-president of the faculty union at Seattle Central College, said she was there to show her support. “People are here because they’re trying to eat and survive,” she said. “If we weren’t depleting their countries of their natural resources and their jobs, they would have no desire to even come here to survive.”
Photo by Casey Jaywork
“Capitalism is the issue,” she added. “We need more of a society that’s structured around the common good for all.”
Joshua Liljenstolpe, a pastor who’s a common face at social justice marches, said that immigration is “one of the major questions our society has to deal with … I think we need an immigration law that will recognize our need for people to come and do work that most Americans aren’t willing and aren’t capable of doing.”
The immigrant and labor march terminated at 7th Avenue and Stewart Street, beside the U.S. District Court. There, several speakers addressed the crowd, including law student and organizer Nikkita Oliver, who pleaded, “Please stay fighting in the streets.” You can hear her full speech here:
In the evening, around 6:45 p.m., several hundred anti-capitalist marchers, escorted by perhaps two hundred police, left Seattle Central College for what began as a wandering, and then turned into a harshly driven, walk around Capitol Hill.
It’s not clear when or how things turned rough. For a while, protesters were content to chant “All cops are bastards” and Seattle police (who had riot backup from other departments from the area) were content to remain on the sidelines. There was even a bagpipes player.
But around 7:30 p.m., police began using heavy handed tactics including flash-bang grenades and coordinated bike-shoving. Black bloc members characteristically dragged trash cans, dumpsters, and construction signs into the road to impede police. The marchers tried to move downtown, but were stymied by police at the highway overpass at Pike and Pine.
And then everything changed. Suddenly, police began a coordinated a prolonged drive east, up the hill of Pine Street. A line of bike cops would shoot forward into the front lines of protesters, where police would set up a new front line of horizontally-held bicycles and bellow, “MOVE! BACK!” Pepper spray flowed and flash-bang grenades were used liberally, often being tossed into the middle of groups of marchers. Rubber bullets were also used; Legal Observer Claire Sullivan received medical assistance for a cut on her leg from one.
Photo by Casey Jaywork
Police used these tactics to drive protesters, who a couple times threw projectiles back at them, several blocks uphill. See for yourself:
Things started winding down around 9 p.m., when police gradually hemmed marchers off the street at Seattle Central College. A cool wind blew from the north and a drone buzzed overhead, and anti-capitalists burned a plastic trashcan down to an ashy heap of goo. The windows on at least one business and of several cars had been smashed, including a KIRO 7 van and a car belonging to MyNorthwest reporter Josh Kerns, and anarchy symbols were spraypainted all over the college’s front square. The police stood in impassive lines to the south and east of the assembled marchers, their batons held across their chests.
Photo by Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren
Photo by Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren
When, just after 10 p.m., police finally left the area immediately surrounding the several dozen protesters who remained, a moment of levity: several protesters walked after them, calling, “MOVE! BACK!”
Police say that three of their own were injured and 16 protesters were arrested.
See a full slideshow of the day’s anti-capitalist march here.
Police in riot gear enforce an exclusion zone near the Seattle Central campus. While protesters were allowed to leave, no one was allowed to enter.
Protesters burn flags and mark a sculpture with graffitti on the Seattle Central campus.
People help pick up trash from a bin overturned by protesters.
The percussive effects of a flash bang grenade jolt the camera as people run for cover.
Protesters and media members run from a deployed flash bang grenade.
Police arrest a man that appeared to fail to move out of the way.
Police force protesters back with their bikes.
Police deploy pepper spray against the crowd in an effort to get them to move back.
Crowds survey the scene while crossing the street as cops in riot gear look on.
Cops receive an unambiguous gesture from a protester.
Anti-capitalist protesters march down Broadway in Capitol Hill.
Seattle police in full riot gear form a line on Broadway.
A woman stares down a police line.
An overturned dumpster lies in the street on Pine.
A KIRO radio vehicle sustains damage from protesters, who would go on to smash most of the windows.
A protesting couple walks hand-in-hand, flanked by bicycle officers.
A man confronts police as they force the crowd south down Broadway.
Remains from a spent flash bang shell mark the pavement.
Police pile onto a protester following a scuffle on Broadway that saw flash bangs, rubber bullets, and pepper spray fly.
As the first bout of violence breaks out near Seattle Central Community College, people seek shelter inside buildings.
Several hundred people march through Capitol Hill in the annual May Day anti-capitalist march.
Marchers yell “Fuck the police” while walking down Broadway.
