Goldy captures remarkable video that shows an interview and the subsequent arrest of a defiant protester at the Seattle Occupation.
The woman has the audacity of building an un-permitted “structure.” It has a sleeping bag foundation (likely not up to seismic or structural codes). Goldy tells me that, aside from asking her to move, they didn’t really take any action until she erected the top portion of the structure, consisting of umbrella-based roofing materials supported by her own arm (certainly not up to structural standards). The city had no choice but to eliminate the dangerous, illegal structure.
As it happens, it was the woman’s only home.
The police first “disarmed” the perpetrator of un-permitted housing construction by taking away a paper cup from her hand and the cigarette from her mouth. It wasn’t just a cup, though, as one cop found out when he pulled the lid off and became moistened by the coffee within.
Dominic Holden has a follow-up report (emphasis in original):
“The only people who we arrest with umbrellas are the people with umbrellas who take their cups of hot coffee and dump it on officers,” says Sergeant Sean Whitcomb. He says you can see in the video below, at about the 1:00 minute mark, the woman “take her hand and forcefully slosh the coffee on one of the officer’s legs.”
[…]The Seattle Police Department is asking prosecutors to charge her with obstruction, resisting arrest, and misdemeanor assault (for the coffee thing). She was one of eight people arrested this morning, Whitcomb says.
A clear case of assault with “hot coffee.”
Except that, as Goldy’s video timestamp shows, the coffee was no less than 38 minutes old at the instant it was used to assault the officer (and it was possibly much older).
And, contrary to Sergeant Whitcomb statement, the moistening/flesh-scorching incident took place after the police had begun detaining her, not before.
In any case, we certainly wish the officer a speedy and full recovery from his coffee burns and a complete dehydration from the moistening. And thank god(s), that when he pulled the lit cigarette from her mouth, the pain of his first injuries didn’t cause him to plant his palm on the lit end of the cigarette.
Thankfully, the dangerous structure was torn down without additional injury to Seattle police officers or innocent bystanders.
Postscript:
As a non-resident of Seattle, I don’t typically have much to say about the Seattle Mayor—I simply don’t have a dog in that race. It seems to me, this video is the nail in the coffin of Mayor Mike McGinn’s reelection prospects. Simply put, his handling of the Occupy Seattle protest has come off as bipolar.
