Rioters in Seattle held a rally against the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) on Saturday, August 15. This demonstration turned violent when several officers were injured by improvised explosive devices thrown at them by the violent mob.
SPOG is the main police union that promotes the interests of rank-and-file Seattle police officers. It is being targeted by Antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement because it has led the fight against the Seattle City Council’s decision to defund the Seattle Police Department (SPD).
At around 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, a small crowd of 100 demonstrators met at the light rail station in central Seattle’s Chinatown-International District. From here, they marched south into the SoDo neighborhood, accompanied by several vehicles, in order to stage a rally in front of SPOG’s main office building.
Before 10:00 p.m., a rioter set off a large explosive device and attempted to break the window of an SPD patrol car. This event sparked off a series of other chaotic incidents during that night that resulted in six SPD officers being injured and 18 rioters getting arrested.
While the chaos of the situation may be difficult to analyze, footage from various social media recordings as well as from body-worn cameras are supporting the fact that the SPD officers were putting their lives on the line to make sure the riot didn’t turn into another wave of mass looting and criminality.
Explosives thrown at police
After the explosive was detonated, the SPD began ordering the crowd to disperse. As the mob was being pushed by the SPD north, back towards the Chinatown-International district where they first gathered, they launched a variety of projectiles at officers, such as fireworks, rocks and bottles. (Related: OBEY: Owners of Seattle shops are expressing support for BLM even as their businesses are attacked.)
Two officers were injured in the initial barrage, with one suffering an eye injury that was serious enough to require hospitalization, and another being taken to a hospital for an unspecified injury. The officer in the latter case has still not been released from the hospital, and the officer with the eye injury was immediately taken to the nearby Harborview Medical Center.
During later clashes with the rioters, one officer suffered a minor burn to the neck after being within the vicinity of another thrown explosive device. Three other officers would receive injuries throughout the evening’s events.
Despite their best efforts, the SPD was unable to properly scatter the crowd until the gathering was declared a riot. Police were eventually able to use pepper spray and “blast balls” – grenades that release pepper spray upon detonation – in order to end the chaos.
The riot ended just before 11:30 p.m., when the SPD was finally able to clear out most of the crowds – but not before police officers had to deal with several more explosive devices being thrown at them throughout the night. Eighteen rioters were arrested and booked into the King County Jail.
In one instance, a female live streamer recorded a large explosion happening right behind SPD lines. After the explosion, the mostly White Antifa and Black Lives Matter mob could be heard taking advantage of the officers’ momentary disarray by strengthening their own line of rioters.
In another explosion, captured by SPD body cameras, a squad of bike patrol officers was forced to briefly disperse after an explosive was lobbed at their formation.
In a third explosion, a large squad of SPD officers was forced to retreat under an unrelenting barrage of explosives.
The weapons used by Antifa and BLM are getting more and more deadly. Learn about all of the times they could have caused a lot of innocent casualties by reading their latest exploits in crime-ridden cities like Seattle and Portland at Rioting.news.
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