Vigil all day in front of the federal building. March to Westlake Park again about 3:30. 200-300 people, way fewer than Thursday, due presumably to intermittent monsoons. March back to the federal building starting about 5:45. Rain started during the second march. By the time we arrived at the federal building, it was POURING
I did not make it downtown until about 4:30 and did more peacekeeping for awhile, long enough to get thoroughly soaked and flirt with hypothermia.
Cops at Westlake were wearing fashionable rain ponchos with POLICE or in some case Seattle Police stamped on them. One or two of the ponchos had white tape on the chest with names written on them, but that was more the exception than the rule. March was escorted by bike cops. Their uniforms have names written in illegible script on their chest.
Rest of the big cop presence was many, many folk with riot gear and billy clubs on both sides of the street for the federal building and the block north; identification was quite spotty though some points had identifiable King Country deputies . When we got to the federal building, cops were quite keen to get everyone up onto the sidewalk plaza and out of the street. Quite keen as in send in the mounted unit waiting along the march route and the movable fence very forcefully.
Unlike Thurs there was no question of there not being room on the plaza.Cops closed in pretty tightly, quickly reopened Second Avenue and again would only let people leave through very limited and out of the way routes.
Yesterday there were 3 arrests connected to the demo, one person who allegedly broke a car window down the street from Westlake, one on a bike charged with "impersonating an officer (?)" and one charged with assaulting a police horse. The "assaulting a police horse" occurred right at the end of the march where the mounted cops were right on top of everyone. I was close but did not see the event and there were reports of diverse topical chatter on police radios.
The other charming feature confirmed on local NPR station: in addition to 2-3 helicopters hovering frequently there are now camera installed overlooking both Westlake Park and the federal buidling plaza.
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