OPINION:
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, the Democrat who let thugs take over her city’s streets and set up armed patrols to keep out police, has accused City Council socialist Kshama Sawant of inciting riotous actions that led to a swarming of demonstrators inside City Hall and, get this, to Durkan’s own home. And she wants an investigation. And she wants Sawant to possibly be expelled.
This is about as tit-for-tat as it gets.
Durkan, the anti-law-and-order lady who oh-so-cavalierly let anarchists deface the local police department and take over blocks of Seattle streets, and then toss out all normal societal standards of law and order — this same lady now wants to demand a lawful and orderly investigation into perceived unlawful and disorderly behavior?
If only business owners in the CHOP zone subjected to forced accommodation of an anarchist presence had been afforded the same.
“Two teenagers shot in Seattle’s CHOP autonomous zone,” one BBC headline read, just hours ago, reporting on the death of a 16-year-old and the hospitalization of a 14-year-old.
That’s the fourth shooting within the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest zone in the last 10 days; that’s the second gun-related death in the CHOP area in this same time period.
All under the watchful eyes of Durkan.
“After the latest violence,” BBC wrote, “city officials have said they are considering dismantling CHOP, and reopening a police station in the area that was abandoned by officers when the zone was first set up.”
Ya think?
Durkan, a few days ago, on the heels of the shootings, came out and said she was going to work with the CHOP demonstrators to see if they could reach to a mutually agreeable and peaceful exit plan — while vowing that police would not be used to forcibly clear the area. Message to thugs: Stay as long as you like.
And they pretty much have.
And they’ve pretty much run amok.
But Durkan’s reaction is a fascinating expose in how Democrats think. She’s OK with the CHOP zone when protesters throw out police and establish an armed-guard boundary. She’s OK with the CHOP zone when a guy gets killed and another, injured by gunshot. She’s OK with the CHOP zone while business owners complain about losing business, losing their sense of safety. She’s OK with the CHOP zone while disrupting an entire section of the city’s normal day-to-day life. She’s OK with the CHOP zone while another gets killed — a boy, 16 — and another gets injured, a boy, age 14.
But when protesters start to storm her home?
When CHOP thugs take to her government offices?
That’s a line that can’t be crossed. Durkan springs to action. In a letter to the council president Lorena Gonzalez, Durkan accused Sawant of several very unlawful acts.
“Disagreements on policy contribute to a robust public debate,” Durkan wrote. “However, policy disagreements do not justify a council member who potentially uses their position in violation of law or who recklessly undermines the safety of others, all for political theater.”
Among her accusations?
Durkan alleges Sawant let in “hundreds of protesters into City Hall after hours without following social distancing or masking protocols,” that she led a “protest to the mayor’s home” and that she used her council platform to “encourage protesters to occupy the East Precinct” at a time when Seattle officials were working to get the area cleared.
And then Durkan decried the vandalism that occurred at her home at the hands of CHOP-tied protesters.
“All of us have joined hundreds of demonstrations … but Sawant and her followers chose to do so with reckless disregard of the safety of my family and children,” Durkan wrote. “In addition … her followers vandalized my home by spray-painting obscenities.”
The vandalism to Durkan’s home is wrong.
The fear her family felt during too-close-for-comfort protests is wrong.
But Durkan brought this on herself.
Had she taken a firm law and order stance at the beginning of the CHOP takeover, while it was still CHAZ, the thugs and anarchists never would have been emboldened to the point of marching on her home, defacing her residence, frightening her children.
She gave the boot to law and order. And now she wants a law-and-order look at what’s befallen her personally? Tit, meet tat. You reap what you sow.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.
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