Seattle taxpayers foot the bill for the city’s riot negligence
Zachary Faria
Seattle is going to be shelling out $3.6 million in taxpayer dollars to businesses that were damaged during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots, proving once again that incompetent governance comes with a price.
Seattle agreed to reimburse businesses for damages after it refused to do anything to stop rioters and instead allowed lawlessness to rule the city. According to District Judge Thomas Zilly, the city’s Democratic leaders were negligent. “Plaintiffs plausibly allege that the city’s actions — encouraging CHOP participants to wall off the area and agreeing to a ‘no response’ zone within and near CHOP’s borders — foreseeably placed plaintiffs in a worse position,” Zilly wrote.
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CHOP, or the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, was later renamed the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Rioters decided to take over six blocks of the city and declare it free from the city’s control. Seattle’s Democratic leaders simply allowed it to happen. Then-Mayor Jenny Durkan said that the existence of the autonomous zone could result in a “summer of love.”
You may recall that the zone was soon controlled by a “warlord” and that two teenagers were shot and killed while the zone was allowed to exist.
On top of that, the businesses that were located within this autonomous zone were unable to operate. Firefighters and health officials were not allowed into the zone, and neither were police officers. The businesses were effectively taken over by no-life rioters and criminals that Seattle allowed to control over six city blocks with no resistance.
As a result of Seattle’s love affair with rioters and criminals, several businesses were forced to shut down, unable to survive the combination of property damage and COVID restrictions. The city saw a surge in crime (that it is only now starting to address) as a result of enabling criminals and demonizing police officers. And now, taxpayers will be out another $3.6 million to make up for the city leaving businesses to fight for themselves against the very rioters the mayor claimed were “patriotic.”
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This is what incompetent governance looks like. Seattle destroyed its communities and its residents’ sense of safety and now is leaving the city a few million dollars poorer. The liberal worldview of “live and let riot” is destructive socially and financially, and this won’t be the last time a city’s taxpayers will be paying for it, both figuratively and literally.