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This week, sixteen residents and businesses in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle sued the city for violating their rights by supporting the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) Occupied Protest (CHOP), perhaps best described as antifa-stan. The businesses support the free speech rights of protesters in CHOP antifa-stan, but that does not mean Seattle is off the hook for depriving these businesses and people of their rights to property, due process, and more by enabling the lawlessness of CHOP antifa-stan.

“Rather than seeking to restore order and protect the residents and property owners within CHOP, the City instead chose to actively endorse, enable, and participate in the occupation of CHOP,” the class-action lawsuit alleges. This violated the rights of residents and businesses.

“The property owners, businesses, and residents in the area suffer ever-increasing property damage and economic loss every day that CHOP exists in their neighborhood, all because of the city’s active support, encouragement, and endorsement of the occupation,” the suit claims. “In particular, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan has provided the CHOP participants with not just tangible resources but also a de facto stamp of approval.”

Seattle Police abandoned the East Precinct station on June 8, allowing a loose band of anarchists, antifa instigators, Black Lives Matter protesters, and others to seize the station and six city blocks, declaring the area an “autonomous zone” separate from the United States. City leaders not only allowed this to happen but aided and even praised the rebels, with Mayor Jenny Durkan even suggesting that CHOP would become a “Summer of Love.” When President Donald Trump urged Durkan and Gov. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) to restore order, they acted as though he had urged them to commit atrocities against peaceful protesters.

“This lawsuit is about the constitutional and other legal rights of Plaintiffs—businesses, employees, and residents in and around CHOP—which have been overrun by the City of Seattle’s unprecedented decision to abandon and close off an entire city neighborhood, leaving it unchecked by the police, unserved by fire and emergency health services, and inaccessible to the public at large,” the plaintiffs explain.

“The City’s decision has subjected businesses, employees, and residents of that neighborhood to extensive property damage, public safety dangers, and an inability to use and access their properties.”

The plaintiffs, including a tattoo parlor and an auto repair shop, alleged that Seattle helped CHOP antifa-stan in at least four concrete ways: it left up the barriers to city streets, it provided more concrete barriers to CHOP antifa-stan, it provided portable toilets that are regularly serviced, and it provided medical equipment, including beds and other supplies, to the CHOP “medical tent.”

On June 22, Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best stated that reports to police demonstrate some CHOP antifa-stan participants are “engaging in shootings, a rape, assaults, burglary, arson, and property destruction, and I have their police reports right here. I’m not making it up. These things have happened.”

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https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/ty...4m_iY8wRwsvrkYw

Splendid. Now it will be interesting to see if the city will claim sovereign immunity, a variant on the police's "limited immunity".