Seattle settled in a lawsuit over the city’s failure to put an end to the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) zone for three weeks during the summer of 2020, agreeing to pay a total of $3.65 million to more than a dozen local businesses and citizens who filed the suit, according to the Seattle Times.
CHOP, an area in Seattle’s East Precinct taken over by protesters and deemed a no-cop zone, became the scene of multiple shootings during its short existence, as well as forcing residents to deal with property damage and violence, which prompted investment group Hunters Capital, along with a group of other local business owners, to sue the city in June 2020 for “depriving them of their rights to their property.” The settlement, which was announced Wednesday and finalized on Friday, includes $600,000 in penalties for text messages deleted by city leaders.
[Seattle got off cheap. The entire city council should have been removed for dereliction of duty. Such cities should have had their charters suspended while they abandoned citizens to mob rule, but alas, there isn’t much intestinal fortitude at the state level either. — Ed]
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