Former New York Police Department and Secret Service agent Dan Bongino said Seattle’s Capitol Hill Organized Protest, known as CHOP, looks like a “bad comic book” because people inside can’t be protected.
During a Monday appearance on Fox’s “Fox & Friends,” the former cop commented on weekend shootings that took place inside CHOP. One of the men involved in a Saturday shooting died. There was another person hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, according to the Seattle Police Department. On Sunday, the department reported another shooting.
Police officers responded to the shootings even though some members of the group are calling for the department to be eliminated. The suspect or suspects are still at large, Fox News reports.
“It shows the disparity here amongst these professional police officers, who despite being crapped on, insulted, having things thrown at them, attacked, still respond inside with some of these people in there who treat them like total garbage and filth,” Bongino said.
A group called Decriminalize Seattle posted a statement, “Last night’s shooting should redirect us to the task at hand – to defend black lives by dismantling the Seattle Police Department and investing in real community safety,” Fox News reports.
“Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone/Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHAZ/CHOP) emerged from struggle and resistance against the Seattle Police Department (SPD) and its East Precinct in defense of Black lives,” the group said. “No single group fought in the streets against cops – instead, many different people from many different belief systems and organizations who all agreed that anti-black police violence must end struggled together against the SPD and lifted demands for defunding SPD.”
Bongino ripped Seattle’s mayor and praised police officers for responding to the shooting.
Last week, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan’s office issued a statement that CHOP “has emerged as a gathering place where community members can demand change of their local, state, and federal government.”
“If you can’t provide security in that hierarchy of needs for people, then what’s the point? What’s the point of government? I mean, to have your garbage picked up a few times a week. What is this ‘Game of Thrones,’ where you have a warlord in there?” Bongino said. “This defeats the whole liberal ethos: the government will be there for you, we’ll provide security, you don’t need firearms, forget the Second Amendment. You didn’t do squat. You can’t even get that. You had one job. It’s pathetic.”
