A Seattle artist who had helped restore a Black Lives Matter outside a former so-called “autonomous zone” has let it slip that the city had paid him to do so during a recent livestream.
“Hey look, and the funniest thing about this is – the City of Seattle is paying me to do this. So, it’s beautiful, you know what I’m saying?” said Dahvee Enciso, a muralist and the “crew chief” hired by the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT). Enciso said this while laughing and showing off some of the slogans he and his friends had written on the mural.
“No good cops in a racist system. Jenny Durkan, you’re next.” he added, seemingly threatening Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan with violence. This is despite the fact that she’s actually his main financial backer for the project.
The mural itself featured messages were against law enforcement and in support of Black Lives Matter, such as “Hands up don’t shoot,” “Abolish law enforcement” and “All cops are bad.” (Related: Seattle City Council votes to override mayoral veto, effectively defunding their police department.)
One of the messages in the mural reads “100% Antifa,” which is a reference to the manifesto of the Antifa militant Michael Forest Reinoehl, who murdered Aaron Danielson, a conservative and a Trump supporter, in Portland in late August.
Seattle gave Antifa artists contract to restore BLM murals all over city
Enciso bragging about being paid by the city was shared on Tuesday, Oct. 6, by popular conservative Twitter personality Kitty Shackleford. In her tweet, Shackleford informed her followers the city was indirectly endorsing the anti-police, pro-BLM and pro-Antifa beliefs of Enciso and his organization, known as the Vivid Matter Collective.
In her Twitter thread, Shackleford shared a statement from the SDOT that stated that the Vivid Matter Collective started working on the project on Saturday, Sept. 26 – 10 days before Shackleford shared the video. According to the documents, Enciso’s role as “crew chief” is to advise the artists from his collective regarding how to restore “a durable on-street mural with the correct primer, number of paint layers and adding traction material to each coat of paint that can withstand the roadway conditions in this area.”
The statement also said that once the Black Lives Matter mural has been completed, Enciso and the Vivid Matter Collective will continue working with the city to restore and recreate other street murals.
“Maintaining the integrity of the recreated Black Lives Matter mural will be an ongoing project for all,” it said.
In addition, the SDOT statement confirmed that Enciso and the Vivid Matter Collective will be compensated. However, they refused to divulge how much they would be paid, citing the fact that the contract they’re working under is open-ended.
“We will not know the final costs of the materials and other work associated with this until the work has been completed. There will also be ongoing investments to preserve the artwork in the future,” said an SDOT spokesperson.
“Why is there a blank check for criminals to be writing these messages on the streets?” wrote Shackleford when she revealed the information she gathered. “Do they endorse the ‘ACAB’ messages written on the mural?”
Shackleford also shared two videos of Enciso apparently participating in two different riots. In the first video, Enciso was trying to justify to police officers why he is carrying a weapon – Mace – while he berated and harassed the officers. In the second video, he was trying to justify the destruction of private property to a passerby based on rumors that the owner attempted to defend their property with a firearm and that they were supposedly in league with white supremacists.
Learn more about how public officials in cities like Seattle and Portland are allowing the rioting, civil unrest and anti-law enforcement environment to thrive by reading the articles at Rioting.news.
Sources include:
Please contact us for more information.