Seattle police chief: We responded ‘at a distance’
Calls to 911 are not being answered near the so-called autonomous zone in Seattle, says one business owner.
John McDermott, the owner of Car Tenders, a car repair shop that abuts the zone, said that he called police a dozen times about a burglary in progress and a fire that was started by the burglar. Police, he says, never arrived.
McDermott’s son, Mason, claimed to have apprehended a suspect inside their shop just after the suspect lit a fire to hand sanitizer that had been spread on a counter.
“I chased him down and as soon as I came face to face, he came at me so I put him on the ground,” Mason McDermott told KIRO TV news in Seattle.
The suspect then tried to cut the younger McDermott with a box cutter, but only managed to slash McDermott’s pants.
Eventually, however, both McDermotts were forced to let the suspect go after being confronted by protesters demanding release of the suspect.
In multiple calls to police, the police dispatcher said that officers were responding to the call, but eventually admitted that officers would not be coming, says John McDermott.
The Seattle police chief claims that officers responded to the call “from a distance.”
“The officers responded to the call and they observed the location from a distance. They did not see any signs of smoke or fire or anything else and they did not see a disturbance. The officers did not observe, from the report that I read, anything they perceived as a threat to life safety and they did not go in,” said Seattle Chief of Police Carmen Best.
A video on Youtube and Twitter, however, shows a mob attacking the business and knocking down a chain-link fence. On the video, someone can be heard saying, “We already let him go.”
Tweeted Jorge Ventura Media: A huge mob just attacked “Small Tender” business demanding a release of man who went into the business and started a fire, the business is located inside the 6 blocks of #CHAZ a ‘no-cop zone’. Reporting on the ground in #Seattle
The elder McDermott claimed that some of the protesters were armed and so was his son. Right now they are both happy no one got seriously injured.
“It could’ve really gotten out of hand,” said John McDermott.
“Nobody showed up when literally our lives are on the line,” Mason said. “I think the mayor and governor need to get their act together — because this is beyond a protest,” he added.
PHOTO: AP Photo/Elaine Thompson
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