LIVE FROM THE CHOP: "We Will Not Negotiate With Terrorists"
A stunning and spontaneous meeting results in the CHOP's decision not to remove barricades as the city originally planned
Welcome to Rave New World, a newsletter on the intersecting futures of nightlife, drugs, and counterculture. For the next week or two, I will be reporting from the CHOP in Seattle, and this newsletter will take a more spontaneous liveblog form. Today, a spontaneous meeting at the CHOP resulted in a game-changing decision, while a mystery emerges around who is stealing the artwork from the CHOP. If you missed my lit livestream earlier this afternoon, sorry I forgot to save it lol. But I’ll be going live again on my Instagram throughout the weekend, and here’s a recap of what happened.
“A special announcement is coming, please gather outside the precinct!” a man in a rainbow poncho shouts on a loudspeaker, waving a wooden staff as he wanders through the CHOP. It has been raining all morning, and a chilling breeze wafts through the grey-cast grounds as the few dozen protestors left standing poke their heads out of tents. I’ve just arrived for my second day at the CHOP; yesterday at dawn, the mayor sent construction workers to remove the barricades at the entrance, seemingly to make good on her promise that the area will be cleared out by early this week.
So far, it’s been unclear what the protestors will do when that happens, but the man in the poncho, who introduces himself as Rad 2 Cool, tells me, “If more people are here, the cops can never kick us out. The plan is to have as many people as possible all in the streets until they figure out there’s no way to stop us, because we’re simply occupying space.” Then he adds on the loudspeaker, “If anyone can bring a dab to the meeting, I’d like to take a dab.”
As a crowd of ~fifty people gather outside the precinct, an activist reads from a letter that the city sent them, outlining their plan to remove the CHOP’s barricades—while creating a “safe space” around the abandoned police precinct for the protestors to continue occupying. Despite pleas for everyone to listen respectfully, the crowd quickly shouts him down, with one man yelling, “We do not negotiate with terrorists! We are not letting the cops remove shit.” The CHOP’s self-appointed security guard waves his hands in the air to emphasize this point, his jacket swinging to reveal several guns strapped to his side. Then another young activist named River takes a stand. “We fought to take this place, and we will fight till the end,” he says to a chorus of cheers. Waving a blunt in the air, he adds, “I am smoking this right now with no cops harassing me, and we’re gonna keep it this way.”
Then, the mayor’s assistant Stefanie Formas arrives on the scene and takes the megaphone, telling protestors that the city does not plan to let police retake the precinct, and merely wants to remove the barricades to reopen the streets to traffic. She adds that the city is providing storage space for all the DIY artwork that has been painted on plywood barricades and walls around the CHOP—which has started to go missing in the last few days, allegedly stolen by those who hope to profit from the works. The crowd remains unmoved, and she steps down with a look of resignation. A man with a blonde ponytail puts down his trumpet and starts sawing off the barricade’s handles so they can’t be picked up. “All right,” says one of the activists with a megaphone. “Looks like we just decided that we’re done negotiating with the city. We’re not leaving!”
As the mayor’s assistant starts walking out of the CHOP, one of the CHOP’s leaders Mark Anthony (who I spoke to on my first night) chases after her. Stefanie expresses her frustration that her attempt to make her case with the protestors did not go well, saying, “There are more residents and businesses in this neighborhood than protestors on the grounds, you understand that, right?”
Mark responds, “We organized this meeting to have full transparency with everyone involved, and we can’t control how people react. But I think if the Mayor herself had come down here to say exactly what you just tried to relay, it would have made an impact.” Unable to come to a resolution, they instead start discussing a more immediate concern: how and where the artwork from the barricades will be stored when they are removed later today.
The afternoon’s stunning and spontaneous meeting suggests this weekend might not be the CHOP’s final stand, as I had originally predicted. The last remaining protestors are also the most committed, and they seem willing to defend the territory using any means necessary—even if the police use tear gas and other violent tactics that they had resorted to during the skirmish a few weeks ago that ultimately resulted in the precinct’s abandonment. While the Mayor’s office seems sympathetic to the protestors’ politics—or at least aware of the uneasy optics of clearing out a group fighting for Black lives—they are also facing incredible pressure from the area’s residents and businesses to shut shit down, and a second class-action lawsuit was recently filed holding the city accountable for financial damages.
What will happen on Monday, when the city sends in their sentinels to remove the barricades, is anyone’s guess—but you already know ya girl is planning to be there, so stay tuned.
+ Read: My Gnarly First Night at the Chop
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