Seattle police officers falsified a report of armed Proud Boys members heading toward the autonomous zone in the city in 2020, a watchdog found.
The Seattle Police Department abandoned a precinct on June 8, 2020, and activists soon after established an armed protest zone in the area known by some as CHOP.
That same day, officers over the radio said armed members of the Proud Boys, a right-wing group that has clashed with members of the far-left Antifa network, were heading towards the area where the autonomous zone cropped up.
“We’re going to be the one taking my group down around city hall to monitor the group of the Proud Boys gathering right now,” one officer told a dispatcher.
“Small group, possible Proud Boys. It looks like a few of them might be open carry,” another said.
A third officer later said one of the group was carrying a gun and that the group “is very boisterous tonight.”
“Hearing from the Proud Boys group. They are not very happy with the response in the audience. They may be looking for somewhere else for confrontation,” the first officer said.
According to a journalist who was in the autonomous zone, the string of communications prompted many people to go grab firearms and the event transitioned from being peaceful to something entirely different. However, video footage from the scene showed at least some individuals already armed.
Interviewed by the Seattle Office Police Accountability, the officer credited with coming up with the effort said officers put forth “misinformation” because they knew they would be overheard.
“[There was] no intent to put any kind of false narrative out there, as far as like Proud Boys, or anything, that was not the guidance that I gave to those. I just wanted to see if that was something that would, that could actually work, but it was all more routine kind of movement, you know, we’re going to go here to there, let’s deliver food, let’s do that kind of stuff like that, just to kind of see what the reaction would be,” the officer, who was a captain at the time, told investigators (pdf).
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