CovOps
 Location : Ether-Sphere
Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator
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 |  Subject: Protesters gather in Olympia amid heightened tension, added security  Mon Jan 11, 2021 5:06 am | |
| OLYMPIA — Protests at the state Capitol in Olympia remained peaceful and largely calm as of Sunday evening, amid heightened tensions and bolstered security in the wake of the pro-Trump assault on the nation’s Capitol last week.
One event on Sunday, billed as a protest against COVID restrictions and “vaccine discrimination” was small, with a crowd of about 100 people shortly after 1 p.m. Protesters began to disperse after about an hour of peaceful and uneventful speeches.
A second Olympia protest, this one for Black Lives Matter, began soon after the right-wing protest ended.
After the attack in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, that left five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer, one conservative organizer canceled his planned protest in Olympia. He had planned on an ongoing demonstration with the goal of entering the state Capitol, which has been closed for months due to COVID-19 restrictions.
But another right-wing protest, featuring Republican legislators, carried on, and another is scheduled for Monday, when the state legislative session kicks off.
Gov. Jay Inslee, last week, authorized up to 750 members of the National Guard to protect the Capitol, and chain-link fence has been put up, circling the building. Several hundred National Guard members stood guard behind the fence Sunday afternoon, along the entire perimeter of the Capitol. Other state and federal law enforcement agencies were also present.
Since COVID-19 restrictions went into place this spring, there have been 149 unpermitted demonstrations or events at the Capitol, Washington State Patrol spokesperson Chris Loftis said, ranging in size from 10 to 2,500 people.
On the same day that a mob stormed the Capitol last week, protesters in Olympia got through a gate to the governor’s residence and chanted slogans on the lawn during a brief standoff with the Washington State Patrol.
Loftis said that in about one-third of the protests this year, people would go in front of the governor’s mansion “and shout and scream.”
“And I don’t think we allowed ourselves to think that [a breach would ever happen],” he said. “Because after 100 years nobody ever had tried to reach the gate. Well, we learned a lot. We’re in a new world.”
He said the gates at the mansion were being changed out and security was being added. “The level of mobilization, both seen and the unseen resources, are being greatly amped up because of this, and I would imagine that those types of changes will endure” after the pandemic, Loftis said.
Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, who was scheduled to speak at both Sunday’s and Monday’s demonstrations in Olympia, said the protests were about the governor’s policies, and discouraged protesters from bringing guns.
Not all of them listened. A number of participants carried handguns and semi-automatic rifles and some wore fatigues and carried other tactical gear. But organizers repeatedly stressed that this was to be a peaceful protest.
“Free speech shouldn’t have this effect on the government,” Walsh said Sunday, expressing disgust at the fences blocking foot traffic around the Capitol. “We want them gone, we want the people’s house open to the people.”
Walsh and other protesters were pushing for limits on the governor’s authority, which they said he had abused as he tried to limit the spread of COVID-19.
.https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/protesters-gather-in-olympia-amid-heightened-tension-added-security/ |
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