Another update: In a stunning show of revolutionary logistical capability for coordination that would make Leon Trotsky weep with joy that Stalin put him out of his misery with a ice pick the #CHAZ commune has been using such high security communications platforms such as a official Discord server, a subreddit and twitter DMs to coordinate and help organize. I am sure they are using a private window on Safari as well, the poor FBI agents have no hope to possibly gather evidence or do surveillance on these absolute top notch hackers!
Reading the list of demands, I am now going to go through them one by one.
THE DEMANDS OF THE COLLECTIVE BLACK VOICES AT FREE CAPITOL HILL TO THE GOVERNMENT OF SEATTLE said:
In credit to the people who freed Capitol Hill, this list of demands is neither brief nor simplistic. This is no simple request to end police brutality. We demand that the City Council and the Mayor, whoever that may be, implement these policy changes for the cultural and historic advancement of the City of Seattle, and to ease the struggles of its people. This document is to represent the black voices who spoke in victory at the top of 12th & Pine after 9 days of peaceful protest while under constant nightly attack from the Seattle Police Department. These are words from that night, June 8th, 2020.
“Welcome to Free Capitol Hill” — Posted 06/08/2020
For ease of consideration, we’ve broken these demands into four categories: The Justice System, Health and Human Services, Economics, and Education.
The problem with putting out this kind of long list to everyone is that no one will respond. They would have been better served making a list of demands separated by jurisdiction. At least then, they stood a chance of getting a response.
Given the historical moment, we’ll begin with our demands pertaining to the Justice System.
The Seattle Police Department and attached court system are beyond reform. We do not request reform, we demand abolition. We demand that the Seattle Council and the Mayor defund and abolish the Seattle Police Department and the attached Criminal Justice Apparatus. This means 100% of funding, including existing pensions for Seattle Police. At an equal level of priority we also demand that the city disallow the operations of ICE in the city of Seattle.
In the transitionary period between now and the dismantlement of the Seattle Police Department, we demand that the use of armed force be banned entirely. No guns, no batons, no riot shields, no chemical weapons, especially against those exercising their First Amendment right as Americans to protest.
We demand an end to the school-to-prison pipeline and the abolition of youth jails. Get kids out of prison, get cops out of schools. We also demand that the new youth prison being built in Seattle currently be repurposed.
We demand that not the City government, nor the State government, but that the Federal government launch a full-scale investigation into past and current cases of police brutality in Seattle and Washington, as well as the re-opening of all closed cases reported to the Office of Police Accountability. In particular, we demand that cases particular to Seattle and Washington be reopened where no justice has been served, namely the cases of Iosia Faletogo, Damarius Butts, Isaiah Obet, Tommy Le, Shaun Fuhr, and Charleena Lyles.
We demand reparations for victims of police brutality, in a form to be determined.
We demand that the City of Seattle make the names of officers involved in police brutality a matter of public record. Anonymity should not even be a privilege in public service.
We demand a retrial of all People in Color currently serving a prison sentence for violent crime, by a jury of their peers in their community.
We demand decriminalization of the acts of protest, and amnesty for protestors generally, but specifically those involved in what has been termed “The George Floyd Rebellion” against the terrorist cell that previously occupied this area known as the Seattle Police Department. This includes the immediate release of all protestors currently being held in prison after the arrests made at 11th and Pine on Sunday night and early Saturday morning June 7th and 8th, and any other protesters arrested in the past two weeks of the uprising, the name Evan Hreha in particular comes to mind who filmed Seattle police macing a young girl and is now in jail.
We demand that the City of Seattle and the State Government release any prisoner currently serving time for a marijuana-related offense and expunge the related conviction.
We demand the City of Seattle and State Government release any prisoner currently serving time just for resisting arrest if there are no other related charges, and that those convictions should also be expunged.
We demand that prisoners currently serving time be given the full and unrestricted right to vote, and for Washington State to pass legislation specifically breaking from Federal law that prevents felons from being able to vote.
We demand an end to prosecutorial immunity for police officers in the time between now and the dissolution of the SPD and extant justice system.
We demand the abolition of imprisonment, generally speaking, but especially the abolition of both youth prisons and privately-owned, for-profit prisons.
We demand in replacement of the current criminal justice system the creation of restorative/transformative accountability programs as a replacement for imprisonment.
We demand autonomy be given to the people to create localized anti-crime systems.
We demand that the Seattle Police Department, between now and the time of its abolition in the near future, empty its “lost and found” and return property owned by denizens of the city.
We demand justice for those who have been sexually harassed or abused by the Seattle Police Department or prison guards in the state of Washington.
We demand that between now and the abolition of the SPD that each and every SPD officer turn on their body cameras, and that the body camera video of all Seattle police should be a matter of easily accessible public record.
We demand that the funding previously used for Seattle Police be redirected into: A) Socialized Health and Medicine for the City of Seattle. B) Free public housing, because housing is a right, not a privilege. C) Public education, to decrease the average class size in city schools and increase teacher salary. D) Naturalization services for immigrants to the United States living here undocumented. (We demand they be called “undocumented” because no person is illegal.) E) General community development. Parks, etc.
1. You want to abolish both the police, court system, and prevent ICE from entering the city. I am going to use what I call the RRR response. If you get rid of the police, who is going to stop Rape? Who is going to stop Rioting? Who is going to stop murderous Rampages? If someone goes to that area and begins shooting people in the head, who is going to stop said shooter? No alternative is offered, because no alternative exists.
2. No force by police. Okay, someone pulls out a gun and blows off a protestor's head in front of police. Don't worry the police will just scold them.
3. Why are the kids in prision? If they raped a baby and then murdered said baby, I would not want that kid back out on the street. Are police shooting kids in schools or arresting them for not doing their homework? I am confused about why having police in schools protecting kids is a bad thing. If there is one place police should be to protect people, it would be schools. I mean if a shooter goes to a school, and starts shooting the kids, how is the shooter going to be stopped?
4. So you want Trump in charge of the investigation at the Federal level. Oh, not Trump, just a special person appointed, well then, who is paying for that? I for one don't want my tax dollars going to waste on something that pointless over in Washington.
5. Reperations for police brutality, alright. Watching police shows was very brutal and triggered me. I want reperations please. I also just transitioned to being black, so can I get some reperations for that as well?
6. Can we also get a public database of all citizens and their crimes as well. Because I think a number of the people making these demands have a criminal history and I would like to know their past to help determine the merits of their demands.
7. What if they pleaded guilty or already had a trial with a jury? How is a retrial going to help? Also, would you trust the evidence collected by the police?
8. So if a protestor raped a person or murdered a person during the protest they should be pardoned. Got it. Pardons for everyone, so go crazy.
9. What if the marijuana was laced with poison and killed people? It is a marijuana related offense, so I guess they are off the hook. Or how about a drug dealer who shot another drug dealer to steal some marijuana, guess we can let them out as well.
10. You do realize that people plead down. So will this amnesty take into account the pre-plea crimes?
11. Felons voting, meh.
Gods this is a long ass list.
12. Alright, then you try and find anyone who wants to be part of your 'new police order'. I hope you get the shit sued out of you.
13. You do realize that the competition in regards to prisons drives down the costs and improves efficiency. Well I guess you can have higher taxes, but I for one want my private and for profit prisions.
14. So what would replace the current criminal justice system? You give a lot of nice sounding words, but nothing to sink one's teeth into. Take for example a person who kidnaps women and chains them in his basement and rapes them for years on end. You want to fix that person with some mental health counseling and no prision. Yeah...no.
15. Again, what is your local anti-crime system? If it is just citizens revolving disputes, perhaps they would form a council, with a council leader to over see the process, and a council of their peers to stand in judgement. Perhaps local people could be trained and given special privileges to enforce law and order. WOW, what an amazing system.
16. Who gets said property if there is no one to claim it? I call dibs first, so it goes to me. Problem solved.
17. What about prisioner on prisioner assult? That seems far more likely.
18. Can we have all your members wear cameras, so the Feds can review the footage to find out the terrorist leaders. It would be a big help, accountability and all that as well.
19. Again, what about RRR? I mean honestly when you have a crack head high out of his mind, attempting to murder/rape someone, giving them cookies and a stern talking to won't work.
We also have economic demands that must be addressed.
We demand the de-gentrification of Seattle, starting with rent control.
We demand the restoration of city funding for arts and culture to re-establish the once-rich local cultural identity of Seattle.
We demand free college for the people of the state of Washington, due to the overwhelming effect that education has on economic success, and the correlated overwhelming impact of poverty on people of color, as a form of reparations for the treatment of Black people in this state and country.
We demand that between now and the abolition of the SPD that Seattle Police be prohibited from performing “homeless sweeps” that displace and disturb our homeless neighbors, and on equal footing we demand an end to all evictions.
We demand a decentralized election process to give the citizens of Seattle a greater ability to select candidates for public office such that we are not forced to choose at the poll between equally undesirable options. There are multiple systems and policies in place which make it impractical at best for working-class people to run for public office, all of which must go, starting with any fees associated with applying to run for public office.
1. Okay, we will start with your home. Lets get rid of it. Don't worry you will have a new place to live in 3-6 months.
2. Well since protesting will be granted amnesty I already burned down all your art.
3. You can go to street college. It is called the School of Hard Knocks.
4. So people can stop paying rent. Then who will pay for all the utilities and trash pickup?
5. How much are the fees? Because last I checked, most election fees are just a filing cost of a couple hundred dollars. Not thousands upon thousands.
Related to economic demands, we also have demands pertaining to what we would formally call “Health and Human Services.”
We demand the hospitals and care facilities of Seattle employ black doctors and nurses specifically to help care for black patients.
We demand the people of Seattle seek out and proudly support Black-owned businesses. Your money is our power and sustainability.
We demand that the city create an entirely separate system staffed by mental health experts to respond to 911 calls pertaining to mental health crises, and insist that all involved in such a program be put through thorough, rigorous training in conflict de-escalation.
1. So you want to appoint doctors on race, not on qualification. I definitely don't want that medical service. Have fun when your stiches leave you with a massive scar or you get an infection and die. Not saying that black people are unqualified, but using anything other than medical skills to grade medical professionals is stupid. You can keep your race based health care system, while I go with my skill based health care system.
2. You burned them all down and the people who burned them down will be released from jail according to your demands.
3. Again, you can scold the cracked out rapist/murderer. That will work. Just avoid the pointy end of the needles.
Finally, let us now address our demands regarding the education system in the City of Seattle and State of Washington.
We demand that the history of Black and Native Americans be given a significantly greater focus in the Washington State education curriculum.
We demand that thorough anti-bias training become a legal requirement for all jobs in the education system, as well as in the medical profession and in mass media.
We demand the City of Seattle and State of Washington remove any and all monuments dedicated to historical figures of the Confederacy, whose treasonous attempts to build an America with slavery as a permanent fixture were an affront to the human race.
1. So you can learn how the Native Americans enslaved other tribes and raped their women. I agree that should be included.
2. Great now you won't discriminate against Republicans or people of religion who don't want to bake custom gay wedding cakes.
3. This is the only thing that is slightly reasonable. I 100% agree that removing Confederate monuments should be a local decision. That said, how many Confederate monuments are in the state of Washington? If it is more than 0, color me surprised.
Transcribed by @irie_kenya and @AustinCHowe. Special thanks to Magik for starting and facilitating the discussion to create this list, to Omari Salisbury for the idea to break the list into categories, and as well a thanks to Kshama Sawant for being the only Seattle official to discuss with the people on Free Capitol Hill the night that it was liberated.
Although we have liberated Free Capitol Hill in the name of the people of Seattle, we must not forget that we stand on land already once stolen from the Duwamish People, the first people of Seattle, and whose brother, John T. Williams of the Nuu-chah-nulth tribe up north was murdered by the Seattle Police Department 10 years ago.
Another update: In a stunning show of revolutionary logistical capability for coordination that would make Leon Trotsky weep with joy that Stalin put him out of his misery with a ice pick the #CHAZ commune has been using such high security communications platforms such as a official Discord server, a subreddit and twitter DMs to coordinate and help organize. I am sure they are using a private window on Safari as well, the poor FBI agents have no hope to possibly gather evidence or do surveillance on these absolute top notch hackers!
They should have a no-digital policy. Send messages via runners or something. Did nobody point out the dangers of this method of organizing? Just because discord logs are only ever released for far right servers doesn’t mean they’re safe.
They should have a no-digital policy. Send messages via runners or something. Did nobody point out the dangers of this method of organizing? Just because discord logs are only ever released for far right servers doesn’t mean they’re safe.
They had the opportunity to call themselves the Capitol Hill Antifa District, CHAD, and failed to do so. To miss such low hanging fruit... sad.
Anyway I guess we will see the US crush another tiny communist country just like the old days. 2020 is surely delivering, it gave us WWIII and now its USA vs Communism round 2.
They had the opportunity to call themselves the Capitol Hill Antifa District, CHAD, and failed to do so. To miss such low hanging fruit... sad.
Anyway I guess we will see the US crush another tiny communist country just like the old days. 2020 is surely delivering, it gave us WWIII and now its USA vs Communism round 2.
They had the opportunity to call themselves the Capitol Hill Antifa District, CHAD, and failed to do so. To miss such low hanging fruit... sad.
Anyway I guess we will see the US crush another tiny communist country just like the old days. 2020 is surely delivering, it gave us WWIII and now its USA vs Communism round 2.
Actually any blackpowder firearm at all no matter how big, unless the powder charge is more than 50lbs. Dixie Gun Works was selling 6pdr Whitworth Breachloaders for a long time.
I believe the US Army’s 1870s/1880s conversion of its Ordnance Rifle MLRs into 3.2” BLRs with a steel breach would be the largest legal brand new unregistered artillery piece you could make repros of, and there’s no law to prevent you from mounting it on a recoil suppressed mount on the back of a heavy truck for mobility.
