My sister, Lizzie Hanks on the march in Seattle today.
I keep seeing posts from people blaming protestors for the violence in Seattle tonight. Let me just say, you weren’t there. I wrote this just now, rather quickly so please don’t mind my grammar. I just think it’s pertinent that first hand accounts get out there before people speculate wildly on a quickly spiraling situation in Seattle. The following is what I experienced this afternoon in Westlake in Seattle. I do not know what happened where I was not at, I can’t speak for what I did not see. But this is what I did see (and I know it's long but if you want a first-hand account, read through this):
Reminiscent of the women’s march, we approached the to-be starting point for the peaceful “Defiant Walk of Resistance Against Injustice” at the Westlake Center downtown. I was in the crowd with my mother and sister on 5th Ave. Everyone stood in masks, only a select few going maskless, in fairly spread apart groups. We began doing the usual things for marches: generating the occasional chant, wondering when we’d start moving. It felt like the Women’s March. You could feel how passionate people were, and there was certainly no violence. We saw a squad of police walk through the crowd toward the westlake center, but they seemed detached from those around us. “Good,” I thought, “they’re just going to stop traffic and maintain the peace.”
When people did start moving, though, it seemed wrong. Everyone had been facing toward Westlake Center where we could hear the chants originating from, when suddenly people turned around. Suddenly people were marching, calmly, albeit everyone seemed a bit confused. It felt purposeful, walking forward until I realized that neither I nor anyone around me knew why we were walking this way. People’s heads swiveled as they realised the same thing I had, trying to discern a leader, or anyone who could say why we were moving north.
Then began the loud bangs. We heard a bang come from the Westlake Center area, and everyone grew uneasy. We looked around trying to determine where the sound had come from. People in the crowd began to calm each other, saying it had probably been nothing. But then, rather suddenly, people burst through the southbound throng with tears streaking down their faces, pepper spray on their clothes. We reached the corner of 5th and Stewart (we had simply moved to the corner, having been in the middle of the block), and looking up Stewart I saw cans of teargas spiraling on the street. I turned around and became aware of a wall of police. The police had pushed protestors in two directions, us to the south, and another group to the north. They had begun isolating protests. Everyone began to chant “Hands up, Don’t Shoot, Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” again and again. A protestor yelled “Everyone on the ground, keep your hands up” and we all did. Before the police we were united.
But that didn’t stop them. Every five or so minutes, the officers would begin to yell “Move back!” and push forward with their batons, spraying pepper spray and tear gas into the air. They threw a flash bang into the crowd, people screamed. We continued chanting the names of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, chanting “I can’t breathe,” and “No Justice! No Peace!”
I remember thinking, “I have never been this scared in my entire life.” I coughed against the tear gas, and my eyes stung, and I was a full ten feet from the wall of police.People yelled “Why are you doing this? We have a right to protest! This is a peaceful protest!” But the police pushed forward.
At one point, a man broke from the throng of protesters, surging toward the police. He ripped his shirt from his body screaming insults and threats. The protestors collectively began yelling “NO!” or “Don’t do it!” “They’ll think we’re violent!” The police did not pepper spray this man. After being pulled away from the police by a protestor the man stormed away, not engaging the cops.
After being pushed back again and again, I could feel the fear around me. I was shaking. But we stood together. No one was violent. Not where I was. The police continued to shove and spray, shove and spray, one even propping up his rubber bullet gun to aim at the crowd.
Eventually, people began to peel away turning down the street. We began to walk toward I-5, as a crowd. Protestors began to gather into a march once again, leaving the confrontation. As we passed 6th Avenue we turned to peer down the street, seeing a vehicle on fire. Protestors began to yell, “NO! Don’t go that way! The peaceful march is this way!” Everyone chiming in to guide the peaceful protestors away from the police, away from the burning car.
We marched to I-5 south where we stopped traffic, I think protestors had stopped traffic going north as well. Everything was peaceful there. There were no cops, but rather protestors on the freeway marching south, and lining the overpasses. We walked on the freeway and saw smoke rising in the sky in the direction we came from. It began to rain harder, and my eyes and face began to burn as chemicals washed into my eyes and became stuck under my mask. Exiting the freeway on the next off-ramp, we circled back into downtown where protestors yelled “Good job everyone!” Protestors were overjoyed that we had managed to make a point, we had stopped traffic, and we had done it without the police in our faces. The crowds began to disperse, so we decided to return to the car. On our way, though, we came up against a wall of police. Our phones buzzed, we saw the notification that an immediate 5 o’clock curfew was in place in Seattle and that everyone needed to return home. It was 5:05. We tried to get back to the car, but kept running into police, ultimately circling around several blocks to get back. Leaving the city was easy after that, it seemed like a ghost town everywhere else.
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