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Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said Thursday that neither she nor city police Chief Carmen Best had any intention of resigning — despite calls from protesters that they do so.
“The answer is no and no,” Durkan told reporters a news conference, according to Seattle’s KUOW Public Radio.
“We thought about a ‘Thelma & Louise’ moment,” she added, referring to a 1991 movie about two women on the run from the law.
Hundreds of demonstrators took over City Hall for roughly an hour Tuesday night while seizing a six-block area downtown that includes a shuttered police precinct. The demonstrations were reportedly peaceful but the crowd called on Durkan to step down if she refused to defund the city’s police.
Protesters have called on authorities in making sweeping reforms to law enforcement tactics — and redirect police funding to community health and service efforts, according to The Guardian. Other demands included dropping criminal charges against protesters.
On Thursday, the crowd continued to occupy the six-block downtown area, named the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” (CHAZ) because of its location in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
The occupation comes after Seattle police effectively abandoned the department’s East Precinct in the area after violent clashes with rioters earlier in the week.
At Thursday’s news conference, Best told reporters it wasn’t her decision to leave the precinct, while Durkan also denied responsibility, according to The Stranger, a Seattle-based newspaper.
“We were asked to do an operational plan in case we needed to leave,” Best said. “The decision was made. We’re still evaluating about how that change came about but it didn’t come from me.”
A few police officers re-entered the so-called “cop-free zone” on the way to the boarded-up, abandoned East Precinct building.
SEATTLE OFFICERS FACE ‘AUTONOMOUS ZONE’ CROWD, SAYS 911 RESPONSE TIMES HAVE TRIPLED
“Tensions are high in the CHAZ after some officers came in to enter the East Precinct,” Town Hall journalist Julio Rosas tweeted Thursday, along with a two-minute video of the encounter. “Some in the crowd wanted to make sure nothing happened to the officers. Others wanted to prevent the officers from entering the zone.”
An officer can be overheard in the video telling a protester that “our 911 response time has tripled from what it was before we had officers not working out of this precinct.”
Earlier Thursday, President Trump called out Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Durkan, accusing the Democrats of losing control of the nation’s 18th largest city.
“Radical Left Governor @JayInslee and the Mayor of Seattle are being taunted and played at a level that our great Country has never seen before. Take back your city NOW. If you don’t do it, I will. This is not a game. These ugly Anarchists must be stopped IMMEDIATELY. MOVE FAST!,” he wrote.
Durkan responded: “It’s clear @realDonaldTrump doesn’t understand what’s happening on five square blocks of our City. Cal Anderson and Capitol Hill has for decades been a place for free speech, community, and self-expression.”
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She added that CHAZ was “not a lawless wasteland of anarchist insurrection,” but a peaceful expression of the community’s grief following the death of George Floyd in police custody on May 25 in Minneapolis.
Fox News’ Vandana Rambaran and Michael Ruiz contributed to this story.
