By Omari Salisbury

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Converge Media was invited by a group of CHOP protestors and Seattle Public Utilities to live stream the meeting. When we were invited we had no idea that all other media would be excluded. Several local and national reporters contacted me when we were en route and I gave them the address, expecting to see them there. Our understanding was that it was a meeting between a group of CHOP protestors, the Mayor, and Andre Taylor of Not This Time. We were told it was not a press conference but that we were there to ensure transparency via live stream. 

Bobby Stills set up the streaming equipment and we waited for the meeting to start. Just before the Mayor entered the meeting room, Andre Taylor and Stephanie Formas (the Mayor’s Chief of Staff) both said that we could not stream as it was a private meeting. At that time I started to live tweet to ensure that the media and public could get information and photos in real time.

About 20 minutes into the meeting the Mayor stood up and walked over to me, asking me to refrain from live tweeting. At that point, the Converge Media staff that was in the room huddled to discuss leaving the meeting all together since we could not stream or live tweet. I opted to stay so there would at least be an outside observer who witnessed the meeting and could report back to the media and the public as to what we observed. I felt that leaving would have deprived the public of an objective and transparent view of what transpired.

Why would Mayor Durkan continue with the meeting after seeing the list of demands? Who exactly did the protest group from the CHOP represent?

It should have been clear to the Mayor that something was very wrong, especially considering the document said “South Side” as opposed to “Southend.” The demands very well might have been written by someone from out of state as clearly no Seattle resident would use the term “South Side.” That was already one big red flag that the Mayor missed or disregarded but it was not the last.  

Mayor Durkan

The Mayor did not have to read past the first section to see that something was wrong with the demands that were presented. It should have been clearly obvious to the Mayor that whoever wrote the demands might not only be from out of state, but also totally unknowledgeable about mayoral jurisdiction and, most urgently, had no idea that many items on the list have been SPD policy for years. 

1. Qualified immunity – This is a State of Washington issue.

a. Body cameras – SPD has had body cams for years. Additionally, there was a change made to the body cam rules in regard to demonstrations back on June 9, 2020.
b. Dashboard cameras – SPD has had dash cams for years.

Seasoned politicians like Mayor Durkan, who is also a lawyer and a shrewd negotiator, should not have had to look any further than the points above to realize that something was seriously wrong with what was being presented to her. 

The Mayor had at least a few options. Firstly, she could have stopped the meeting based on the numerous red flags in the demands. Or secondly, after seeing the demands and all the red flags, she could have used the meeting as an opportunity to say that she met with protesters, met their demands, and moved on. She chose the latter. 

Protest Group

Why the group of protesters would present demands so out of touch is best known to them. With everything that we as a city have been through for the past month, one would think that the protestors would have provided a set of demands that were aligned with the more prominent demands amongst Seattle’s Black community, or at least listed demands that were not already city law and actually within the purview of the Mayor’s authority.

How could this group of protesters – some of whom I saw weeks ago at the Western Barricade during the standoff days with the Seattle Police – have a demand that the SPD wear body cameras? We all saw they had body cameras affixed to their uniforms. The issue at the time was ensuring the cameras were turned on, but you would be hard pressed to find anyone who said the police were not wearing them altogether. No one in the protester group saw a body camera during the standoff?

How dashboard cameras made their list of demands is mind blowing. SPD has had dashboard cameras for years.

How qualified immunity made the protestors’ list is again perplexing as that is a state issue and not a municipal one.

I don’t have time this morning to walk you through the whole list point-by-point but the issues are obvious and glaring.

When the Mayor and Andre Taylor on several occasions said that SDOT was coming on Sunday to remove all barricades except the ones outside the East Precinct, there were no objections raised by the protesters and also no questions regarding logistics of exactly what would occur. In fact, many of the protesters had actually left well before the meeting was even over.

There was one exception in regard to the protester group, it was Marcus Henderson who manages the CHOP garden. He sat at a separate table than the main protest group and was laser focused on getting human services to the homeless and marginalized population within the CHOP. He stood firm, stating that he needed immediate answers in the meeting as to what the city would do, and his persistence forced a commitment directly from the Mayor to give him a plan by today. 

In Summary 

To me, the Mayor did all the citizens of Seattle a disservice by not exerting true leadership and stopping the meeting as soon as she saw the demands. As Mayor she should have known something was clearly wrong. By continuing with the meeting after seeing all the red flags, the Mayor took advantage of the situation for expediency and optics. Considering everything Seattle has been through over the past month, the Mayor owes it to the people of Seattle to make sure that any discussions she has with protest groups are high-level and legitimate. 

The protest group that met with Mayor Durkan did a disservice to their fellow protesters who were tear gassed, maced, shot with rubber bullets, and flash banged; to those who camped out for weeks relying on Honey Buckets and hand-washing stations to occupy the space; to Lorenzo Anderson who lost his life at the CHOP as well as the others who were shot and injured during the occupation; to the residents of Capitol Hill who have continuously supported the protests; to Seattle’s Black population, especially in legacy neighborhoods like the Central District where I am from; and a disservice to the people of Seattle as a whole – most of whom want to see a systemic change in the way Seattle operates. For the protest group to present this list of demands at a high-level meeting with the Mayor makes it all too clear that they are out of touch with the very issues they were demanding change for. 

The Mayor expressed her sense of urgency to re-open the CHOP – and to be fair, that is understandable – but honestly her actions yesterday very well might just move Capitol Hill’s occupation to South Lake Union, especially as tensions continue to rise at the West Precinct where protesters broke a window yesterday.

I have been saying for a while now that the overall problems around social justice in our city need to be addressed and resolved… not just swept under the rug or moved to another neighborhood.

My read on yesterday's meeting was a complete waste of time and total BULLSHIT (sorry Mom).

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