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Pro-Palestine protesters shut down I-5 in downtown Seattle – cops have few answers

January 7, 2024 | | Print Article

Pro-Palestinian protesters successfully blocked off the northbound lane of Seattle’s I-5 highway on Saturday, prompting anger at the police for doing nothing to stop the madness.

“A blockade of cars and protesters standing on the freeway, joined by hundreds more people gathered on nearby overpasses, halted northbound lanes of I-5 between Interstate 90 and Mercer Street, causing a 6-mile backup,” The Seattle Times reported.

“Organizers and attendees said they were protesting to draw attention to the increasingly dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza and to decry American support for Israel’s military campaign.”

According to reporting from local station KTTH radio show host Jason Rantz, the protest started sometime around 1:00 pm PST with the protesters overtaking the I-5 overpass.

They eventually moved onto I-5, where they blocked the northbound lane while shouting pro-Palestinian chants and holding up pro-Palestinian banners.

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Rantz reported around 2:00 pm PST that it looked like the authorities were finally preparing to move in and disperse the protest.

Yet as seen in additional video tweets posted by Rantz, this never happened, with the police instead holding “meetings” and apparently trying to negotiate with the protesters but ultimately doing nothing.

Look:

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Correction: The police did eventually move in to help clear the traffic jam that erupted because of the protesters. As for the protesters, they were allowed to continue jamming up traffic.

In addition to protesting and jamming up traffic, the protesters eventually started chanting anti-police slogans and performing some sort of dance.

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“They’re doing a dance now. Washington State Patrol command staff should be ashamed,” Rantz tweeted in response to the dance.

Look:

Meanwhile, the police continued to do nothing but stand around as the protesters taunted them.

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Then at last some good news: It started to rain, causing the protesters to finally be “rained out,” according to Rantz.

Look:

Rantz for his part appeared pleased by them being rained out but still annoyed by the police’s unwillingness to do anything.

“WA State should be embarrassed at how it handled the Pro-Hamas rally that blocked the I-5 freeway,” it tweeted around 5:00 pm PST.

“By not intervening, @wastatepatrol just ensured it will happen again. This wasn’t a trooper issue — it was command staff. They lack leadership and end up supporting antisemitism,” he added.

It’s of course always been like this in Seattle, a far-left city that previously embraced the violent Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, even allowing some BLM activists to cordon off a part of the city.

To the protesters’ credit, they did at least apologize to drivers for disturbing their drives.

“Before authorities began rerouting traffic to keep drivers off northbound I-5, protesters handed flyers to drivers that apologized for the inconvenience and said, ‘We would not have taken this action if it weren’t an emergency of life or death for thousands, if not millions, of people,'” the Times notes.

However, the same protesters also reportedly left about a dozen vehicles on I-5 after they left.

“The State Patrol said tow trucks removed them and the freeway reopened shortly after 6 p.m.,” the Times notes.

Vivek Saxena
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