SEATTLE, Wash. – Mayor Jenny Durkan says Seattle will move to wind down the “occupied” protest zone following recent shootings, including one that left a 19-year-old man dead.
Durkan said at a news conference Monday June 22nd, that officials are working with the community to bring the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest zone to an end after two weeks.
“The cumulative impacts of the gatherings and protests,” Durkan said, “and the nighttime atmosphere and violence has lead to increasingly difficult circumstances for our businesses and residents.”
She didn’t give a timeline but said the city would take “additional steps” if people don’t leave voluntarily.
And she said police will soon return to a police station that the department abandoned after clashes with protesters following George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police.
Meanwhile, the godmother of the 19-year-old man killed in a shooting in the CHOP zone early Saturday wants answers from protesters.
She said, “I’m trying to understand why won’t you let 911 medics in to help him. Y’all picked him up, he could’ve still been breathing, we don’t know that.”
“Stacy” tells Q-13 News that the protesters for Black Lives Matter didn’t live up to that with the shooting that led to the death of her godson, Lorenzo Anderson.
Police said they couldn’t get aid to Anderson and another shooting victim, who were taken to a hospital in a private vehicle.