400 Jailed as Police Occupy Seattle Streets

The heart of Seattle turned into an armed camp Wednesday as baton-wielding police and National Guard units occupied the streets, arresting hundreds of demonstrators and setting up an impenetrable perimeter around the World Trade Organization talks.

The downtown retail district was a surreal scene of Christmas lights, nutcracker displays and riot-helmeted officers marching in lock-step as roving bands of protesters, surging through the streets, shouted taunts and anti-WTO slogans.

Clearly stunned by the sheer numbers and vehemence of the protesters a day earlier--when an estimated 30,000 demonstrators occupied most of downtown Seattle and blockaded the WTO’s opening ceremonies, law enforcement emerged in force Wednesday. The city awoke from an overnight curfew to find an armored personnel carrier posted outside the convention center and empty buses waiting to haul away protesters by the hundreds.

Tentative Christmas shoppers filed past columns of camouflage-clad National Guardsmen, and private security guards stood sentry along a stretch of boarded-up storefronts, remnants of widespread vandalism and looting that swept through the city Tuesday.

“We have restored order to downtown Seattle. People should feel safe to come downtown--and no lines in the stores for Christmas shopping,” Mayor Paul Schell said in a wry attempt at humor.

Demonstrators Rally in Afternoon

But by Wednesday afternoon, the protesters had marshaled their forces, and more than 500 stormed down Third Street shouting: “Our streets, our world!” before being turned back by a cloud of tear gas.

Police pursued the fleeing crowd, firing rubber bullets and concussion grenades into the marchers’ backs.

Later, officers launched an extraordinary march through rush-hour traffic as onlookers shouted “Sieg Heil!”

Police chased demonstrators down to the waterfront, firing tear gas and concussion grenades before finally surrounding about 50 of them in the city’s trendy Belltown district.

Onlookers shouted from balconies and rooftops, a chorus of “Let them go!” echoing eerily through the streets as police helicopters circled overhead.

The city again was placed under a curfew, beginning at 7 p.m. and due to last until 7:30 this morning.

Throughout the day Wednesday, protesters--alternately screaming “fascists!” at the police and quietly joining hands to sing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”--lashed out at the crackdown, complaining that one of the nation’s most politically tolerant cities had stifled public debate.

“You’ll have to arrest the entire population of the world if you want to get us all,” one young man yelled at police as dozens of his cohorts were led away in plastic handcuffs.

Despite the state of emergency declared the night before, chanting throngs periodically took over entire city blocks Wednesday, only to be driven back by arm-locked police and officers on horseback.

Hundreds of protesters sat down and linked arms at an urban park near a downtown shopping mall, prompting at least 150 peaceful arrests. Many more were arrested near a parking lot several blocks away. At midafternoon, a crowd of at least 150 occupied the sidewalk outside the hotel where President Clinton was to stay after his address to WTO delegates.

Still, it seemed a remarkably different scene from the chaos, screaming, tear gas and pepper spray that dominated the first day of protests--when vastly outnumbered police drove back surging crowds with clouds of chemicals.

On Wednesday, police, state patrol and National Guard units were so numerous that they marched parade-style, their boots clicking rhythmically on the rain-soaked streets. Protesters inside a downtown core area who refused orders to disperse were summarily handcuffed and, when they went limp, dragged off to waiting buses.

By the end of the day, police had made nearly 400 arrests. The King County prosecutor filed felony charges against 10 protesters, with offenses ranging from malicious mischief and possession of stolen property to rioting and assault. Bail of $25,000 was being sought for each felony defendant.

“I’m not going to attempt to put a positive spin on the damage that was done yesterday, the terror that was created in the hearts and minds of many people that were downtown,” police Chief Norm Stamper said at a news conference.

“We, too, share in the anguish and the pain of driving down the streets of this city, to see windows boarded up at dozens of businesses, to see graffiti on beautiful buildings, to see trash and litter and evidence of fires lit in the middle of our streets.”

Police Commended for ‘Restraint’

But Stamper said his officers were to be congratulated for the “professionalism, restraint and competence” they exercised in controlling the streets without significant injury or loss of life.

“In a demonstration of this magnitude, with the tactics that were being employed, we could easily today be looking at scores of hospitalized . . . if not dead. We could easily at this moment be looking at escalating tensions,” Stamper said.

Demonstrators caught law enforcement officials by surprise Tuesday not only with their numbers, but with their level of organization. They mounted at least half a dozen major acts of civil disobedience in various locations, making it impossible to control them, police said. Authorities said they did not have the manpower to breach their defensive lines and go after the several dozen youths burning trash cans, breaking windows and tossing news racks into the streets.

“What we did today and what we continue to do today was utterly impossible [Tuesday]. We would have had to have double, triple, quadruple the number of law enforcement personnel in the streets,” Stamper said. “We did not want to send a message that Seattle was a police state.”

Indeed, the city could have called out the National Guard and deployed a huge, visible force during the opening day of talks, Schell said, but elected not to because it wanted to allow protesters a forum.

“The choice was to celebrate free speech and do everything we could to make sure nobody got hurt,” he added. “It was painful for our officers to stand there and see people vandalizing their city, but had they broken their lines, I think more people would have been hurt. It was a conscious decision. I take responsibility for it.”

Downtown merchants were bitterly critical of police for not putting a halt to the vandalism carried out by the estimated 30 to 100 people--many of them self-proclaimed anarchists--who did most of the damage. “We let 30 people bring down a city, in my opinion,” one shop owner said.

But demonstrators--many of whom spent Tuesday choking on gas and nursing eyes swollen by pepper spray--expressed amazement that police were handcuffing and hauling away peaceful protesters by the busload.

Police announced they would allow protest on the sidewalks but would not allow marchers to block the streets. When an estimated 300 demonstrators gathered near the Sheraton Hotel and sat down in the street, police drove up in an armored personnel carrier and shouted through a bullhorn: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is an order to disperse! Your conduct is violating state and city safety law. Your failure to leave this area will subject you to arrest.”

Some Protesters Clean Up Graffiti

When officers donned their gas masks and pulled out their pepper spray canisters, march organizers ordered a retreat for regrouping two streets over.

A few blocks away, protesters wearing yellow shoulder bands were working with spray bottles and rags, cleaning up graffiti. “It was supposed to be nonviolent. Graffiti is violent,” said Elizabeth Davidovich, a Seattle resident.

“The people that did this, many of them don’t even know what the WTO is. They saw an opportunity to raise hell, and they did. Now, this is what people will remember. They won’t listen to the rest.”

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More on WTO Summit in Seattle

* CITY REACTS--Seattle has a tradition of activism, but the violence of the WTO protests shocked many residents. A22

* NET ACTIVISM--Protest organizers used the Internet to get information to varied groups. A24

* LESSONS FOR L.A.--Seattle police were unprepared for the scale of the protests. L.A. police hope to learn some lessons. A24

* TRADE POLITICS--The major U.S. presidential candidates have taken similar stands on trade. A23