Seattle's Chief of Police has been caught in yet another lie, as she continues SPD's disinformation campaign, attempting to delegitimize protesters. Yesterday she claimed there have been reports of rape inside Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. The crime data proves she lied. 
Here are the four crimes reported within the CHAZ area the past week.
- Property Destruction
- Theft (actually happened 6.3, reported 6.10)
- Simple Assault
- Aggravated Assault (which took place as they were gassing Capitol Hill)
- Property Destruction
- Theft (actually happened 6.3, reported 6.10)
- Simple Assault
- Aggravated Assault (which took place as they were gassing Capitol Hill)
This is yet another lie in a disinformation campaign that has been going on for weeks, but which has ramped up significantly since police abandoned their East Precinct. Here is a full rundown of the wide-ranging campaign and its violent effects.
And just like the other lies Seattle Police have pushed to the media this week, this latest one has taken on a life of its own. Just 24 hours after the claim, rightwing website are claiming people are being raped and robbed. 4chan is filled with racist references to "rape gangs".
This disinformation is deliberate, as is the rightwing media response. The goal is to shift public sentiment to the point where Seattle Police can get away with perpetrating excessive violence on protesters to retake their lost precinct. Every day it's a new story with new lies.
I know I've been talking a lot about this, but it is wildly important and I believe stopping this disinformation campaign and rightfully discrediting the Seattle Police Dept, is the only way to keep protesters safe and demonstrate to people that SPD must be entirely abolished.
I'm exhausted having this conversation every day, but will continue to shout from the rooftops until media and journalists stop printing SPD's blatant lies without any scrutiny. Like I said yesterday, this isn't just a disinformation campaign against CHAZ, it's against all of us.
if you'd like to take a look at the data yourself: arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries…
In the interest of full transparency, it appears that Chief Best may have been widely misquoted here. Either that, or she gave multiple statements to different reporters. Here is what she said to KOMO, which is substantially different than her quote from National Review.
I have seen no effort from the Seattle Police Department to correct the record, so I genuinely do not know... But the original thing I responded to has been reported everywhere from Yahoo News to The Post Millennial to the former Deputy Assistant to The Secretary Of Defense.
To be perfectly clear: if she was misquoted, and has done nothing to correct the record over several days as this news spread *globally*, the result is the same as if it had been done deliberately.
As for her more general claim, the same website I referenced in the original tweet does not list any sexual assaults being reported to police in the East Precinct in the days since CHAZ has been established.
Okay, I take it back, she was not misquoted and she does appear to give different quotes at different times. Here is a KIRO video, and at :09 you can hear her say the quote in question... she ends with, "it is not right for us not to be able to deploy our officers here."
