UDATED BELOW.

You can’t make this stuff up. Portland has been duking it out with federal officials for the past two months. So Seattle anarchists have begun rioting in support of Portland.

Or maybe Seattle and Portland are more akin to cross-town sports rivals who have to outdo each other. Kind of like the White Sox and the Cubs in Chicago.

After all, Portland has had more attention paid upon it after nearly two straight months of mayhem in the streets. Seattle had that CHOP/CHAZ thing going, but it fell apart. So which city will claim the title of Biggest Badass of the Pacific Northwest? The Emerald City or Stumptown?

At any rate, on Saturday about 2000 members of the “Youth Liberation Front” (which sounds Marxist, doesn’t it?) began marching through the streets of Seattle. As in Portland, protesters were also responding to federal agents being sent to protect federal buildings; they had arrived on Thursday evening. In addition, on Friday a federal judge lifted a a restraining order that prohibited the SPD from using tear gas, blast balls, and pepper spray on crowds. That didn’t set well with the Youth Liberation warriors, either, and they were ready to make some noise.

It didn’t take long for the violence to ramp up, either. Protesters began marching through Capitol Hill (remember that? The old CHOP site) after 2 pm local time. They chanted “Black Lives Matter,” “No Justice, No Peace,” blah, blah, blah. You’d think they’d have come up with something a bit more original by this point.

Credit: Lorie Shaull/flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0. 

The Seattle chapter of the “Wall of Moms” also marched with the protesters. After all, if Portland has its Moms, they have to have them, too.

So far, so good. Drivers just had to avoid the area. If you’ve ever visited Seattle, you know that protests can pop up from time to time and block streets.

But then around 4 pm, that peaceful easy feeling ended at a youth detention facility. At first the group gathered peacefully, chanting “Black Lives Matter” and demanding that the facility be closed. However, someone set fire to a construction site nearby, and Seattle was now ready to compete with Portland in the Pyro Division.

The construction site at the King County Youth Dentention Facility is now on fire. @KING5Seattle pic.twitter.com/pE41r9IZjs

— Kaila Lafferty (@Kaila_KING5) July 25, 2020

But they didn’t stop there, because by 4:30 reports of torched businesses began to surface, requiring people who lived in apartments above to evacuate. Protesters totally destroyed one Starbucks store. Plus, they also began attacking restaurant workers.

These workers at a bar/restaurant say some in the crowd attacked and punched them after accusing one of them of taking images of the crowd. pic.twitter.com/ETQ4m9VYyr

— Mike Baker (@ByMikeBaker) July 25, 2020

Finally, after the East Precinct of the Seattle police department was damaged, the SPD declared the protest to be a “riot.”

Gee, ya think?

Earlier today, at least 1 person breached a fence line @ the East Precinct. Moments later, a device exploded leaving an ~8” hole in the side of the precinct. This was one of several dangerous incidents that led SPD to declare today’s incident a riot. Arson/Bomb dets investigating pic.twitter.com/pGC3kpQzhT

— Seattle Police Dept. (@SeattlePD) July 26, 2020

At the time of this writing, the SPD has arrested about 25 rioters, and yes, they used pepper spray and flash bangs, after the lifting of the restraining order. The SPD also reached out to the King County Sheriff’s office for help.

One older protester didn’t particularly like witnessing what the New York Times called “aggressive tactics.” Her name is Bipasha Mukherjee, she’s 52, and she emigrated from India 30 years ago.

“This is not the country I immigrated to. It feels like we are rapidly becoming a fascist state and a police state.” 

Oh please. Seattle police chief Carmen Best had promised the Seattle City Council that they would refrain from using tear gas. Instead, they would use pepper spray or blast balls if necessary. That’s hardly the stuff of a “fascist police state.”

Also, one of the “Wall of Moms” protesters called the presence of federal agents an “abnegation of federal power,” while another “mom” said this:

“Our tax-funded border patrol and federal agents have no constitutional reason to be here.”

Sorry/not sorry, but they do have a reason to be in Seattle. The agents are there to protect federal property, the same reason they’re in Portland. The law, 9-66.000 — Protection of Government Property, cites that the Department of Homeland Security. . .

“. . .has the responsibility to “protect the buildings, grounds, and property that are owned, occupied, or secured by the Federal Government … and persons on the property.”

Then again, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan called the federal agents “paramilitary groups with secret arrest powers” who are “shredding the fabric of our nation,” so it’s no wonder those women protesters are hysterical.

But how many federal agents came out to smash heads and “kidnap” unsuspecting peaceful protesters rioters? None. That’s because the riots didn’t occur at federal property. Only Seattle police and the King County Sheriff’s department dealt with the riots and made arrests.

Meanwhile, to the south, Portland protesters carried on with Day 58 of their protests. Of course these included clashes with federal officers. Seattle may have a ways to go to catch up with Portland in the mayhem department, but Saturday was a pretty good start.

And two cities in the Pacific Northwest — in my opinion the most stunningly beautiful part of the nation — descend into chaos. All because two feckless mayors would rather see their cities burn than to admit that they have no control over them anymore.

Update: The madness has now spread to Los Angeles; Austin, TX; Omaha, NB; and Aurora, CO. Yet the Baghdad Bob media continue to call them “protests” and blame federal officers for the violence. Let’s just call it what it is: a coup to overthrow a sitting president.

Featured image: personal collection.