By
Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times - Sunday, July 26, 2020
Seattle city councilmember
Kshama Sawant decried “the brutality of capitalism” after a judge blocked the city’s ban on police crowd-control tools such as tear gas and pepper spray, declaring that the Friday ruling threatened “peaceful protesters.”
“Rather than ensure that peaceful protestors are kept safe from federal agents, this court ruling reveals the brutality of American capitalism readying its full arsenal of weapons to attempt to violently suppress demonstrations,” said Ms.
Sawant in a Saturday press
release.
U.S. District Court Judge James Robart
issued a temporary restraining order against the ordinance passed unanimously last month by the city council, a measure that barred police from using tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, bean bags, flashbangs, ultrasonic cannons, water cannons, and other “less lethal” means to break up crowds.
Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best warned that the ordinance, which was slated to go into effect Sunday, would leave police with “NO ability to safely intercede to preserve property in the midst of a large violent crowd,” as she said in a Friday message to businesses and residents.
Seattle has been billed as the first U.S. city to prohibit a wide array of crowd-control methods under the ordinance, which passed June 15 and was sponsored by Ms.
Sawant.
She said it was needed “after the city’s police — under the watch of Democratic establishment Mayor Jenny Durkan — had viciously used the weapons repeatedly against the Black Lives Matter protests.”
“Now a federal judge has shamefully ruled that these weapons can continue to be used by Seattle police,” said Ms.
Sawant in her Saturday statement. “While the judge says this is temporary, our movement understands this is a serious threat. It is particularly chilling that this comes in tandem with Trump’s decision to send border patrol agents like an occupying army into Seattle.”
