Thursday Home

Page updated 10-Dec-1999

My coworker who lives on Capitol Hill, and is very anti-WTO, tells me about the carnage that started at midnight. The police got way out of hand. People going out of stores on their way home were pepper-sprayed as if they were protesters. The tear gas came into buildings. Residents couldn't sleep because of the explosions, so they went outside to give the cops a piece of their mind. Quite the opposite of the crowd-dispersal the police were hoping for. Also, there were 400 mass arrests.

The official news report of the events is here.

My foot has a blister now so I can't walk far, so I spend the evening at home. I do go to the Monkey Pub a few blocks away for a few minutes, but that's it.

The fallout from the night before is obvious. The police department is very shaken up. Angry citizens and high-placed city councilmembers have told them where to go. The police switch again to a more hands-off strategy.

Today the protesters have a new cause. They surround the jail, which fortunately happens to be outside the no-protest area, and demand the release of "the Seattle 500". Failing that, they get the opportunity to send lawyers in, to give the jailed people legal advice.

A spokesman for the county jail is interviewed. The reporter asks him why the police are so much more low-key today. The sherriff says they haven't changed their tactics at all, it's the protesters who've changed. "They aren't breaking laws today." Who knows. But for whatever reason, the protest Thursday is much quieter than Tuesday or Wednesday. Non-violence elevated to an art form?

It was really weird when the police chief actually used the term "the Seattle 500" on TV. Especially since a similar term has been used to describe four people wrongly jailed in the Northern Ireland troubles.

Even weirder is when the mayor apologizes (again) and says, "If anybody's mad, it starts with me (?). And if you don't like how I'm handling things, you can vote me out of office." Clearly he knows some voters are very angry with him over police overreactions.

Even weirder than that --- and more surrealistic --- is that while the mayor's speech is shown, images of police brutality, including beating somebody up with a stick, are shown in a corner of the screen simultaneously.

But the weirdest of all was seeing anarchists on ABC news. They get their five minutes of fame, and a chance to get alternative views in the faces of the elite. Maybe the revolution will be televized. Not. Pictures of "the squat" (the apartment building they took over Sunday); newspaper clipping of their escapades on the wall.