A few dozen stubborn holdouts are refusing to leave the so-called CHOP (for Capitol Hill Occupied Protest) zone as they appear to have given themselves a new identity, and are preparing a list of demands they will present to the city, according to KOMO and the Seattle P-I.com.
Now calling themselves the Black Collective Voices, the holdout protesters were in a standoff with city crews who showed up Friday morning to remove barriers that had been placed by the city several days ago. According to KING 5 News, the local NBC affiliate, “David Lewis, one of the CHOP organizers, said Friday the city will give organizers 72 hours to confer with demonstrators before the barriers are moved.”
This comes days after a KOMO Twitter poll revealed that, by a 72 percent margin, survey respondents wanted the CHOP zone shut down.
Should the city of Seattle move in right now to end the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest or CHOP?
— KOMO News (@komonews) June 20, 2020
A separate KOMO survey, also on Twitter, asks whether respondents think the CHOP movement was a success. By a whopping 85.5 percent tilt, the answer is a resounding “No.” Less than 15 percent of respondents think the effort was a success.
Do you feel the "CHOP" movement has been a success?
— KOMO News (@komonews) June 25, 2020
What might be telling about the experience that locked up six blocks of Seattle’s Capitol Hill area for 16 days is that the Seattle P-I.com story notes that the holdouts are down to “a few dozen people” and a member of the “CHOP council” declared, “We’ve really weeded out the people that are here to protest and the people that are here to party.”
That amounted to an unintended admission that there were probably never very many people devoted to whatever cause ignited the CHOP zone occupation in the first place.
Anthony said other groups had entered the CHOP “with their own message, which detracted from what his group were trying to accomplish. It remains to be seen whether their demands will get any serious attention from the city. Those demands reported include taking 50 percent of Seattle Police Department funds and devoting them to other purposes.
Mayor Jenny Durkan said Seattle police will begin returning to the East Precinct offices, which were abandoned more than two weeks ago, soon. There was no more definitive timeline.
