We haven’t been back yet tonight, but by all accounts, some of those who were camping on city land till police swept the site this afternoon are now on adjacent state land – this is still all part of the potential city jail site at Highland Park Way/West Marginal – and have a few days grace period there. At the end of this afternoon’s sweep, the city said 13 campers had taken them up on their offer of a shelter bed, and insisted they had room for everyone who wanted one. And tonight, there’s a new call from local legislators for the mayor to negotiate with advocates for the homeless. This afternoon, we reported on the sweep as it happened, and finally tonight have finished going through our video and photos to create a diary of sorts, in case you are interested in seeing more of what it was like:
Co-publisher Patrick spent four hours at the camp this morning, waiting to see what would happen; that, as we reported this morning, is when some of the tents started moving into the parking lot.
At 10:30, he came home; nothing had happened, nothing seemed imminent. Then around noon, while he and Junior Member of the Team were at another commitment, I was on the way to the old Southgate roller rink to get an update on its future as a swap-meet site, when WSB tipster Scott C e-mailed that a TV chopper had just shown pictures of something going on at Nickelsville. Half an hour later – just as a radio report said “police are reportedly coming in at 12:35, minutes from now” — I found a parking spot along the busy road just southeast of the camp – no way to get closer with all the media vehicles. Before crossing the street, I had this view of the entrance to the camp, including the parking lot where some campers have now moved, and where TV trucks were parked in profusion:
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As I turned my camera off to cross the street, one of the sign-wielding men yelled, “Come on over with your camera! We need more people with cameras to record what’s going on!”
Well, they probably didn’t really need more people. There were as many photographers – still, video, fullbore TV models, semipro video, handheld video like ours – as campers, on view. For a few minutes, I wandered the site, dry grass and slashed blackberry stubs underfoot – Patrick had been there several times this week, but I hadn’t – to see what was going on, and finally drifted with the media crowd to a platform where organizer Anitra Freeman (one of the two people who visited the Highland Park Action Committee last Monday night, hours after “Nickelsville” was set up) briefed “Nickelodeons” – the campers – on what police had just told her:
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She went on to offer practical advice: “If you plan to be arrested, do have legal ID on you” and also advised what NOT to have (weapons, contraband, but she quickly qualified nobody in the camp was supposed to have those anyway). Then, on cue, shortly after 1, police arrived — I recognized some of the Southwest Precinct leaders we’ve met at everything from Summer Fest to West Seattle Crime Prevention Council meetings to other community gatherings – Lt. Ron Smith was at the head of the group; Community Police Team members, who often find themselves dealing with much smaller encampments (among other things) were there too. They approached from the east:
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We, the media group, followed them all the way to the west/entrance end of the camp, not knowing exactly how they were going to go about rousting the campers – then we turned around and padded back after them as they went back east:
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Some items were taken out of the camp even as police plotted their strategy; I turned around to look back at the entrance, and caught a portable gazebo being carried back up the hill:
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At 1:24, half an hour after Anitra Freeman stood up and talked to the campers, she was the first person arrested; officers talked with her as she sat on the ground in front of one of the easternmost tents. No drama – they talked, they helped her up, she walked away with them:
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(Freeman has a blog, by the way; when we checked it a short time ago, its newest entry was from Thursday.) As officers walked through the camp, looking inside tents, some would-be arrestees simply sat on the ground, as Freeman had, and waited – like these three, two with protest signs:
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And so on down the line it went – the 22 who were eventually arrested, sitting in pairs or trios, or alone (this is a still photo, not a video clip):
Right after that clip, as police talked with the second sign-holder, we switched angles – this scene is interesting for a few things: For one, notice the continuous chopper drone; at least one TV news helicopter was overhead for the duration. For two, note that for some of the officers, it was a whole lot of standing around “just in case.” For three, 28 seconds in, that’s Mayor Nickels’ communications director Robert Mak in an orange safety vest, walking through the scene; he and a member of his staff, Karin Zaugg Black, were there for the duration, though the mayor himself was nowhere in sight:
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Throughout the operation, there were more than a few lulls. In this next clip, the voice you hear is a gentleman ranting about bed bugs at shelters; I then turned the camera around to show the 360 of little pockets of activity, ending on a sign left on one of the pink tents:
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Arrests continued, just as quietly as the ones in the earlier clips; occasionally someone would shout, “Thanks for goin’ to jail, guys!” This next clip documents two arrests a little more closely – two men sitting on the ground, huddling briefly (prayer? strategy?), an officer speaking with them, then one gets up and walks away, the other is advised he’s trespassing, he too gets up, and walks away with officers, as, again, someone calls a farewell off camera:
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As police got closer and closer to the camp’s west entrance, where some of the more permanent structures were, a few people began to shout angrily, though not in proximity to the officers. A few pulled out VA cards to show they were veterans, and one hollered for a moment or two:
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Once police had swept the entire site, mayoral spokesperson Zaugg Black and police spokesperson Officer Mark Jamieson gave official statements to the media. Here’s what she had to say:
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Officer Jamieson, meantime, gave the official arrest count, 22, and noted the site would be watched even once it was cleared:
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As Jamieson and Zaugg Black finished answering questions, I noticed Southwest Precinct Sgt. Jeff Durden a few yards away, walking down the slope to the parking lot with the much-photographed “NICKELSVILLE” sign in hand, without video cameras tailing him:
That sign had been next to a flag, which two men were carefully folding in the parking lot a few minutes later:
Also in the parking lot, a conversation we listened in on – didn’t get their names, but it clearly had followed some of the reported information about the state allowing campers to stay on their property for a few more days:
(video no longer available due to blip.tv shutdown)
What will happen next? We’ll keep checking. All three 34th District legislators – the district that includes West Seattle – have signed a letter posted here and dated today, calling for the mayor to negotiate with groups advocating for homeless people.
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