{"id":5701,"date":"2013-03-24T16:48:33","date_gmt":"2013-03-24T23:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/?p=5701"},"modified":"2013-03-19T16:48:44","modified_gmt":"2013-03-19T23:48:44","slug":"they-all-come-to-westlake-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/2013\/03\/they-all-come-to-westlake-park\/","title":{"rendered":"They all come to Westlake Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just after my bus was pulling out of the stop, two police motorcycles zipped in front and stopped all traffic. What’s going on? My fellow riders and I were expecting celebrity dignitaries. Then the protesters came. Worse. They took a turn into 4th Ave, exactly where the bus was supposed to go. There would be no hope, I got off and walked. Who protest on Friday evening, seriously!
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There were about slightly more than two dozens protesters, many wore masks, two on bicycles, led a banner. About ten police motorcycles proceeded them to clear the traffic; a dozen or so more police on bicycles followed; another 10 or so, also on bicycles, flanked from the side to buffer the protesters from the by-standers on the sidewalk. Put it simply, there were more policemen than protesters.<\/p>\n

Seattle Police has been known for their excessive use of force. There were several high-profile incidents, numerous TV and local news coverages, and a DoJ investigation<\/a> that was not flattening. Seattlites also love to protest, sometime violently<\/a>. Not a week will pass without some forms of picket lines on various causes. Most by-standers leave them alone. Shouting matches are not uncommon.<\/p>\n

As I caught up with the protesters, I learned their cause: against police brutality. The chant was “peace and not police.” The spontaneous argument, passionately shouted out, were on the “facts” that Seattle is a police state that citizens are living in terror.<\/p>\n

Now this is just ironic. Here we have a heavily protected protest against the protectors on the oppression and terrorization by the protectors. I chatted up with one of the police on bicycle. He took a political correct stance, “We protect everybody.”<\/p>\n

The march ended, of course, at Westlake Park. Speakers, some in masks, took megaphones in turn, talked passionately, and demanded changes. Seattlites, as usual, gave them a glancing interest and kept on walking. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just after my bus was pulling out of the stop, two police motorcycles zipped in front and stopped all traffic. What’s going on? My fellow riders and I were expecting celebrity dignitaries. Then the protesters came. Worse. They took a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[361,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5701"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5701"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5721,"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5701\/revisions\/5721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}