During the summer of 2020, the Seattle Capitol Hill area was occupied by the BLM and named the CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) and then the CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupied Protest). The BLM wouldn’t let the police into the area generally, and the police were left up the creek without a paddle with how to deal with some of the issues that the occupation created. It was an incredibly violent and dangerous situation.

But, now there’s word that the Seattle police did something to try to blunt the BLM action that could be extremely problematic. Multiple members of the force faked sightings of armed Proud Boys on the police scanners, knowing that the CHOP folks would be listening and that it might scare them away from certain areas. According to the Seattle Times, it was an “approved misinformation” technique, from bosses — not just a random move by officers.

According to the Office of Police Accountability, this, not surprisingly, didn’t improve the situation; it made things worse, “The use of the Proud Boys when it was known that the transmissions would be monitored took a volatile situation and made it even more so,” OPA Director Andrew Myerberg said. He said it “added fuel to the fire.”

The mastermind behind this ruse was SPD Captain Bryan Grenon. He said he came up with it as “an innocent way” to distract the protesters. He said there wasn’t any intent to put out a false narrative about the Proud Boys or to “cause alarm.”

Oh. But meanwhile, you jacked up people who were already off and doing unhinged things like occupying the area, with the thought that they were about to be attacked? What do you think they would do in response? How do you think they would respond to a Proud Boy, if one happened to accidentally walk into this fake ruse area? This stoked the potential threat to the Proud Boys as well, if they made the BLM think they were being stalked.

Converge Media’s Omari Salisbury said that caused more of the BLM folks to arm themselves.

#Breaking @SeattleOPA sustained allegations against two former senior @SeattlePD Officers who organized a hoax on June 8, 2020. Officers said on police radios that an armed group of Proud Boys were heading to Cal Anderson to confront protesters. Everything in below audio is fake. pic.twitter.com/mQ915fhQ6S

— Omari Salisbury (@Omarisal) January 5, 2022

You may recall they had multiple shootings in the CHOP, including one that allegedly involved the BLM security people who allegedly fired on two teens in a car, killing 16-year-old Antonio Mays and critically injuring a 14-year-old. So, did the ruse play any factor in the thought pattern of the CHOP people that they might be under attack? Meanwhile, where’s the investigation into that shooting and what the BLM was doing shooting up a car?

While the OPA said that the ruse was improper action on the part of the police, no one is getting punished for it. The guy behind it, Grenon, is retired. OPA said the officers who followed Grenon’s directions would not be punished.