Early morning, July 10, SWAT police raid their way into the Seattle apartment of organizers from the Occupy movement. The sleeping residents scrambled to put on clothes as they were confronted with automatic weapons. Neighbor, Natalio Perez, heard the attack from downstairs:“Suddenly we heard the bang of their grenade, and the crashing as police entered the apartment. The crashing and stomping continued for a long time as they tore the place apart.”
After the Swat raid, the residents pored over the papers handed them by a detective. One explained: “This warrant says that they were specifically looking for ‘anarchist materials’ — which lays out the political police state nature of this right there. In addition they were looking for specific pieces of clothing supposedly connected with a May First incident.
When the police finally left, they did not arrest anyone.
This Swat Raid targets well known activists from Occupy Seattle and the Red Spark Collective(part of the national Kasama network).
This apartment has been a hub for organizing the Everything 4 Everyone festival in August – to bring together West Coast forces for a cultural and political event building on the year of Occupy. Rooms were ransacked by police searching for “anarchist materials” and specific clothing.
SWAT Raid on Organizers of Occupy Seattle
The Swat raid is a heavy-handed threat delivered by armed police aimed at intimidating specific people – but also st suppressing the work to continue the Occupy movement in Seattle, and create E4E as a space for radical gathering.
The E4E site will update this with more as we receive it, including hopefully statement from those involved.
http://www.everythingforeveryone.org/
Contact: Liam Wright, Red Spark Collective, redsparkcollective@gmail.com
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