Business Owners Within CHOP File Class Action Suit Against City of Seattle

AP featured image — New cement and wood barricades bear the name CHOP, Tuesday, June 16, 2020, inside what has been named the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest zone in Seattle. The city put the barriers in place Tuesday in hopes of defining an area where emergency, delivery, and other vehicles can travel through the area while still preserving space for protesters, who have been there since police pulled back from near the department’s East Precinct after recent clashes with people protesting the death of George Floyd. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

It was inevitable.

As normal Americans have watched the utter disintegration of civilized society within the Capitol Hill area of Seattle, facilitated by their idiotic, feckless “Mayor Jenny” Durkan, many have thought to themselves, “If I owned a business or lived in that part of the city, I’d refuse to pay taxes,” or, “I’d sue the crap out of the city.”

Now it’s happening.

DEVELOPING: More than a dozen businesses inside CHOP zone, on Seattle's Capitol Hill, file 56-page class action lawsuit against the City of Seattle. They're seeking unspecified damages, to be determined at trial. pic.twitter.com/RPlsW3DuNv

— Preston Phillips (@PrestonTVNews) June 25, 2020

On Wednesday afternoon more than a dozen businesses inside the CHOP/CHAZ zone filed a class action suit in the United States District Court against the City of Seattle, saying:

“(T)his lawsuit is about the constitutional and other legal rights of plaintiffs – businesses, employees and residents in and around CHOP – which have been overrun by the city of Seattle’s unprecedented decision to abandon and close off an entire city neighborhood, leaving it unchecked by the police, unserved by fire and emergency health services and inaccessible to the public at large.”

The Plaintiffs say that city officials were complicit in allowing an “occupied protest” by doing nothing to prevent the conduct and actively endorsing the ongoing occupation of “CHOP.”

They stress, though, that they’re not against the overall Black Lives Matter message.

“The lawsuit isn’t seeking to interfere with the message that is trying to be sent by protesters,” said Angelo Calfo, who is representing the plaintiffs. “Our clients want public order. They want public safety. They want access to their streets and to the properties.”

The lawsuit also states:

“The City has acknowledged the serious safety issues it has created, in particular noting that there are ‘dangerous conditions’ at night, but the City has nonetheless chosen to maintain its policy of providing resources and support to the CHOP occupiers.

“The City’s conduct has enabled the widespread destruction and vandalism of private property. Graffiti is pervasive throughout CHOP—it is not only on barriers, streets, sidewalks, but also on nearly every private building within CHOP. Graffiti that is painted over almost immediately returns, and property owners have been told by CHOP participants that if they dare to paint over graffiti, their buildings will be more severely vandalized or even burned to the ground.

“Plaintiffs and others have repeatedly pleaded with Mayor Durkan and others to cease enabling the destruction of their property and the imminent dangers posed to them and their neighborhood. But the City has not listened, or has not cared, and Plaintiffs have had to resort to litigation to make themselves heard.”

The suit seeks unspecified damages, to be determined at trial. Of course, with every day that Mayor Jenny allows anarchistic terrorists to occupy portions of the city, Plaintiffs’ damages increase.