It’s almost like a police-free anarchy zone is a bad idea.
CHOP shooting in Seattle autonomous zone kills man and critically wounds boy – CNN:
A shooting in Seattle’s Capitol Hill Occupation Protest (CHOP) area Monday morning left one man dead and a 14-year-old boy critically injured — bringing more scrutiny to the autonomous protest zone.
“When investigators arrived, they found a white Jeep Cherokee riddled with bullet holes on 12th Avenue,” Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said, according to CNN affiliate KIRO.
“We were told that there were two men inside the vehicle, and both had been shot.”
The two occupants were taken to Harborview Medical Center in critical condition between 3:15 and 3:30 a.m. (6:15 and 6:30 a.m. ET), hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg told CNN.
The man later died, and the 14-year-old boy remains in critical condition, the hospital said.
Monday’s attack is the fifth shooting within two weeks in the CHOP area, and the second to turn fatal.
Thousands of protesters have occupied the area, a four- to six-block section of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, since June 8 in an effort to demand police reform following the death of George Floyd.
Meanwhile, shootings and violence are up year over year in many major cities (New York, Chicago, etc.) across the United States. While specific cases against bad officers deserve attention, any sort of general animosity toward the police is misplaced. Calls to “defund the police” register somewhere between dangerous and moronic, and we are seeing why.