SEATTLE, Wash. – Police in Seattle tore down demonstrators’ tents in the city’s so-called occupied protest zone after the mayor ordered it cleared.
Officers used their bicycles early Wednesday morning to herd the protesters so the officers could carry out the order.
Seattle’s police chief says at least 23 people were arrested.
A 16-year-old boy was killed and and a younger teen was wounded before dawn in Seattle’s occupied protest zone on Monday.
Monday’s shooting was the second deadly shooting in the area that Police Chief Carmen Best says has seen a rash of robberies, rapes, assaults and other crimes.
Best said, “Not opposed to anybody’s issue or concern. They certainly can demonstrate peacefully in any place, but they can’t hostilely take over a neighborhood and cause the crime levels to go up like this. Two men are dead. Two men are dead. And a child, a 14-year-old, is hospitalized and we don’t know what’s going to happen to that kid. Enough is enough here.”