zlacker

>>obilgi+(OP)
A friend lives in Seattle and texted me today about his visit last night:

> I was there last night and it's such a cool pseudo utopian place

> The media coverage of it is WILD

> People on the internet are convinced it's protected by armed guards and people are dying of hunger and instead its...like a music festival campground

> There are speakers, musicians, art walls. I took a group pic for a bunch of black guys last night and they were so proud of what was built because they felt like they fought for it, which in a sense, they did.

>>conroy+fz1
> The media coverage of it is WILD

I live 7 blocks away from "the zone" and can confirm, I have never in my life seen anything alike in this regard. The scale of the misinformation being spread in social networks and news media reached a level I couldn't believe possible before. Seriously, it's beyond absurd.

If anyone is interested, I have been taking some pictures of the ongoing protests (including a few of the zone): https://www.flickr.com/photos/peramides

>>pera+gF1
Seattle police chief said on TV [1] that "Rapes, robberies and all sorts of violent acts have been occurring in the area and we're not able to get to [them]."

Doesn’t sound very utopian

[1] https://twitter.com/mrandyngo/status/1271291958296604675?s=2...

>>drevil+IP2
She said that, but is it actually true?

Besides, one of the long list of complaints is that police are often useless or worse at dealing with rapes; Minneapolis PD had a massive backlog of untested rape kits.

(edit: correctly gendered the police chief, hadn't bothered looking at the tweet)

>>pjc50+yW2
In the past week SPD has lied about:

- "Incendiary devices" being thrown at officers: it was a candle - as can be seen by the sticker visible in SPD's own tweets

- Businesses being 'extorted': appears SPD leadership got a false report of this from a local alt-right personality and spread it in their press briefing.

- People checking IDs for entry: streamers have been trying to find anyone on the ground who can substantiate this claim and have been unable to. A small handful of people have been kicked out by being swarmed by a crowd and told to leave (and some more colorful language) without violence. These few instances have all either been counter-protestors or people trying to be senselessly destructive, as far as I've seen.

I'm skeptical of these most recent claims

>>cwkoss+Gp3
> A small handful of people have been kicked out by being swarmed by a crowd and told to leave (and some more colorful language) without violence.

This sounds like at least an implicit threat of imminent violence, without disputing the rest of your description.