A charismatic rapper has emerged as the assault-rifle-toting leader of a protester rabble that took over the streets around a now-vacant Seattle police precinct — a “cop-free” encampment that has been allowed to remain for four days and counting.
On Monday night, Seattle police boarded up the windows and doors and left, abandoning the East Precinct on orders of the mayor following days of clashes there, during which protesters had taunted riot-gear-clad cops by flinging bricks and bottles.
When the cops left the area — known as Capitol Hill — protest organizer Solomon “Raz” Simone and a throng of George Floyd-inspired fellow protesters moved in.
Now, the precinct is covered in graffiti, including on the sign above the main entrance, which thanks to spray paint reads “Seattle People Department.”
Some six blocks surrounding the precinct are cordoned off with makeshift barriers, some hung with signs reading, “You are Entering Free Capitol Hill.”
One welcome sign announces: “You are now leaving the USA.”
And although the protesters occupy their days with music, dancing, scrawling graffiti and soap-boxing against racial inequity, the peace feels tenuous.
In recent days, the so-called “CHAZ,” for Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, has only grown — as has Simone’s online notoriety and a White House-Seattle City Hall standoff over what to do next.
Social media images show Simone posing with an assault rifle and patrolling the occupied area with a gun strapped to his leg — images that have led some to accuse Simone of being a resistance “warlord.”
And when President Trump tweeted his displeasure over the lawlessness — crying “Domestic Terrorists have taken over Seattle, run by Radical Left Democrats, of course. LAW & ORDER!” — Simone assumed the tweet was about him.
“The President really put a hit on my head,” Simone tweeted. “I’m not a Terrorist Warlord.
“Quit spreading that false narrative. The world has NEVER been ready for a strong black man,” Simone tweeted.
“We have been peaceful and nothing else. If I die don’t let it be in vain.”
Still, an ad hoc, sporadically violent squatters law appears to prevail at the CHAZ, with some internal disputes being settled with violence by Simone and others closest to him.
“We are the police of this community now,” one protester can be heard saying in a video posted on Twitter Friday, showing a fist fight between Simone and a graffiti artist.
“It was a great black dialogue and men apologizing to each other, abandoning pride,” Simone posted afterward. “We all hugged each other, cried it out, and it was beautiful.”
Mayor Jenny Durkan, too, has rejoiced publicly in what she called the group’s peaceful “patriotism.”
Asked Friday when the CHAZ occupation would end, she said she did not know, instead joking, “We could have a summer of love!”
Trump soon tweeted his response.
“Seattle mayor says, about the anarchists takeover of her city, ‘it is a Summer of Love.’ These Liberal Dems don’t have a clue. The terrorists burn and pillage our cities, and they think it is just wonderful, even the death,” he said, ominously.
“Must end this Seattle takeover now!”
Meanwhile, Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best and even other local Black Lives Matter protesters are losing patience.
The African American Community Advisory Council, furious that protesters have refused to negotiate with police, visited the CHAZ Thursday, leading to an angry confrontation.
“The thing is, you have hijacked this!” meaning the Black Lives Matter movement, one woman was recorded by KOMO News, shouting at protesters.
“You have taken the meaning away!”
Asked Friday when her police would be able to re-enter the precinct, Best sounded helpless.
“We’ve certainly been in conversation about what we might do and what the alternatives are,” the police chief told local news station KIRO-7,
“Ideally, we just need to get back into the building. People are looking for a plan, but we want to make sure we modulate anything that we’re doing.
“We know that several are armed,” Best said, an apparent reference to Simone, who has said on social media that his firearms are registered, and legal to display under the state’s open-carry law.
“We want to make sure that we are being very thoughtful about how we respond,” said Best.