Seattle-area protests: Live updates on Saturday, July 25

Capitol Hill demonstrations started to wrap up early Sunday morning, after Seattle police officers eventually backed up and returned to the Police Department's East Precinct, multiple livestreams showed.

The police line, which stopped protesters at the corner of 11th Avenue and East Pine Street for hours Saturday evening, retreated into the precinct around 1 a.m. A few stragglers continued wandering through the neighborhood, but the majority of the crowd dispersed shortly after, livestreams showed.

Several people shouted reminders to the scattering group to return Sunday afternoon to continue protesting at Westlake Park in downtown Seattle.

Meanwhile, in Portland, protest groups continued to grow past midnight.

In a brief news conference at Seattle Police Department headquarters Saturday night, Police Chief Carmen Best told reporters violence broke out at the demonstrations throughout the day, with officers using blast balls and OC spray, and protesters breaking windows and starting fires.

At one point, Best said, protesters threw an explosive device that blew an eight-inch hole through the Police Department's East Precinct.

“I implore people to come to the city in peace,” Best said. “We support everyone’s First Amendment right to free speech and to gather and assemble in such a  way. But what we saw today was not peaceful … The rioters had no regard for the community’s safety, for officers’ safety or for the businesses and property that they destroyed.”

During the Saturday protests, officers used blast balls, OC spray and 40-millimeter sponge tip rounds to “stop the massive property destruction and damage," Best said. She said officers did not use CS gas against crowds.

Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggins, who was also at the news conference, said he was especially concerned because three of the fires, including the Starbucks blaze, were difficult for firefighters to respond to. At one location, Scoggins said, four trailers were completely destroyed.

Fire officials responded to 12 medical calls, he added, mostly for Seattle police officers.

Best said she has not had contact with the Department of Homeland Security agents the Trump administration dispatched to Seattle, adding that she did not see them at the protests.

Seattle police made 45 protest-related arrests near the East Precinct as of 10 p.m., the department said in a tweet Saturday night.

Twenty-one officers were injured after being hit by bricks, rocks and other explosives, according to the Seattle Police Department, which declared the demonstrations a riot around 4:30 p.m.

Most officers were able to return to duty, the tweet said, and one was treated at the hospital for a knee injury.

After another day of tense protests on Seattle's Capitol Hill, demonstrators are planning to gather again Sunday morning for what they say is their third weekly protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The rally will begin at 11 a.m. at Westlake Park and last until around 2 p.m., according to an event Facebook page.

"Bring as many friends as possible and be sure to mask up. We are expecting another hot Sunday, so come prepared with plenty of water - we need to stay hydrated out there," the event description said.

After days of intense anxiety and speculation about what the presence of federal agents could mean for Saturday’s Youth Liberation Front-organized protest in Seattle, much of the afternoon's events recalled strikingly familiar confrontations between protesters and the city’s police force.

Federal agents, sent by the Trump administration against the wishes of local officials, stayed largely out of sight as the afternoon escalated into violence.

But it was the prospect of federal force that brought some protesters to Capitol Hill.

Kathryn, a protester Saturday who declined to give her last name, said the presence of federal agents in Seattle was “100%” of why she was there. The 45-year-old mother of two had joined the demonstration as a part of the “wall of moms,” a feature also present at the Portland protests.

“This is my first protest,” Kathryn said. “This is an absolute abnegation of federal power.”

Read the full story here.

Shortly before 9 p.m., nearly eight hours after protesters began gathering on Capitol Hill, a group remains at 11th Avenue and East Pine Street chanting and drumming as they face a line of police.

At one point, police deployed pepper spray and ran west down East Pine Street, scattering protesters.

Demonstrators have been split into several smaller groups around Capitol Hill, with some seen traveling along Broadway and through Cal Anderson Park, where officers made arrests. All entrances to the Capitol Hill light rail station are closed. 

A nurse told KCPQ 13 she was attempting to get someone away from a police officer who had a baton when she was pepper-sprayed by police.

King County Sheriff’s Office personnel will respond to Saturday afternoon’s protests at the request of the Seattle Police Department (SPD), according to the Sheriff's Office. 

Several hundred commissioned Sheriff’s Office personnel who were off work today will prepare to respond, said Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Sgt. Ryan Abbott. “We don’t know exactly where we’re going yet,” Abbott said. 

The Sheriff’s Office SWAT team is already assisting SPD, Abbott said.

“We have heard the desires of the community, much of it expressed through peaceful protest, for law enforcement to embrace new models of policing,” Sheriff Mitzi G. Johanknecht said in a statement. “But we cannot allow the deliberate destruction of property or the setting of fires, which could result in serious injuries.”

After a moment of calm, tensions rose again at 11th Avenue and East Pine Street as police pushed protesters back, used flash-bang grenades and pepper sprayed people, including one man directly in the face.

The Seattle Police Department said in a tweet members of the crowd threw rocks, bottles and fireworks. Police said they have made 25 arrests since they declared the area a "riot" around 4:30 p.m.

Clashes continued between police and protesters in at least two locations on Capitol Hill around 6 p.m. with police deploying flash-bang grenades near Seattle Central College.

Sixteen people have been arrested on suspicion of assault on officers, obstruction and failure to disperse, Seattle police said.

Seattle police said just before 5:30 pm that 11 people had been arrested during protests on Capitol Hill.

One police officer was hospitalized with a "leg injury caused by an explosive" and two others were treated and returned to work, the Seattle Police Department said on Twitter.

Protesters and police officers faced off near the corner of East Pine Street and Broadway. Over a loudspeaker, police ordered protesters to disperse, saying, “This is an unlawful assembly."

Some demonstrators then moved back east along East Pine Street toward a line of police officers who threw what appeared to be flash-bang grenades at the crowd and used pepper spray on protesters. Police also pushed demonstrators north on 11th Avenue near Cal Anderson Park.

On Twitter, Seattle police said some in the crowd threw rocks and explosives toward police. In a livestream, journalist Omari Salisbury said he and a producer had been sprayed with pepper spray and hit with flash-bang grenades even though they "followed every police instruction" and were carrying cameras.

Fragments of police incendiary devices littered East Pine Street. Some in the crowd held umbrellas to block pepper spray.

Journalist Omari Salisbury reports that he was hit by a police flash-bang device and other projectiles and is bleeding.

Salisbury is again livestreaming from the front lines of the confrontation between police and protesters on East Pine Street. Watch his feed here.

Police have begun deploying flash-bang grenades and pepper spray on protesters near the East Precinct on Capitol Hill.

Seattle Police Department officers used bikes to block off the intersection at East Pine Street and 11th Avenue, the same location where protesters and police stood in days of tense standoffs a month prior, and are advancing west against the protest crowd on East Pine Street and making arrests.

Seattle police said on Twitter they declared the area a “riot” and are “investigating a possible explosive damage to walls of the East Precinct.” An armored vehicle could be seen behind lines of officers on 11th Avenue and East Pine.

Protesters arrived at the precinct after marching along 12th Avenue. Some businesses along 12th had windows broken.

A construction trailer is on fire after protesters breached the fence at King County's juvenile detention facility, which is under construction.

Seattle Police say they're working to secure access to the site for the Seattle Fire Department.

Protesters chanted "No new youth jail!" as several roamed the construction site. Windows were broken at a building near the facility.

Police and federal officers have yet to be spotted by Seattle Times journalists near the crowd of thousands marching south through Capitol Hill and the Central District. The protest follows days of intense anxiety about police and federal use of force ahead of the weekend's protests.

Late Friday, a last-minute federal ruling temporarily blocked Seattle's new law banning police from using tear gas, flash-bang devices and other crowd-control weapons.

The "moms" have arrived.

People with bright yellow armbands and tape, similar to the yellow-shirted Wall of Moms that made a stand against federal officers in Portland, are arriving at the Seattle demonstration.

Several hundred people are gathering at Seattle Central College on Capitol Hill for a demonstration where a speaker acquainted with the Portland protests provided strategic advice about what tactics to expect from federal agents.

The speaker urged protesters, a smattering bearing shields, helmets and fortified gear, to rescue their comrades by pulling them out of officers’ grasps by their backpacks when arrests begin.

“We do not make people comfortable. That is not our goal," the speaker said.

Another person expressed anger at Seattle police. "They're bullies."