May Day rally briefly turns ugly in Olympia
Posted on Saturday, May 03 @ 12:51:12 EDT
Topic: illegal immigration alien riots crimes
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 May Day rally briefly turns ugly in Olympia
Story Updated: May 1, 2008 at 6:38 PM PDT
By KOMO Staff & News Services
OLYMPIA, Wash. - Six people taking part in a May Day rally in Olympia were arrested Thursday afternoon in a melee that included vandalism and breaking windows at a pair of banks in downtown Olympia.
Video from Air 4 showed two windows were destroyed at a Bank of America branch, and windows were also reportedly broken at the branch of an Olympia Federal Savings bank.
Witnesses told KOMO 1000 NewsRadio that police had to use pepper spray and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.
"I was just driving through the downtown area on 5th and Water Street and there was a bunch of police vehicles approaching at the same time and a large crowd sort of in the intersection of 5th and Water," said witness Val Kvool. "I don't know what sparked it, but I saw four to five people being arrested; the police started spraying pepper spray into the crowd to disperse them, and I saw one police officer fire several rounds of rubber bullets to one person who was in the group protesting."
TOPICS, Ilelgal Immigration, illegal immigrants, riots, crimes, Olympia, Washington, police, arrests, Seattle, protests
Teresa Hall works at the Heritage Bank near the area.
"We watched them walk by the front of our building and break the windows of the Bank of America Building," she said. "They broke the windows, and as soon as they did that, all of a sudden cop cars came from everywhere and they sealed off the 5th Avenue and the alley behind the bank... and they had a non-violent confrontation with the protester and it looked like they hauled him away."
Olympia police say more than two dozen people also gathered outside City Hall, while the State Patrol says the rally also spread to the Capitol, disrupting activities there and leaving some graffiti in the marble halls.
A group endorsed by a number of organizations had a permit to rally at a park downtown and march to the Capitol, calling for immigrant rights and an end to the war in Iraq.
Meantime in Seattle, several thousand pro-immigration demonstrators marched through the streets to reinvigorate reform efforts, especially at the state level.
Advocates say this year's message targeted local politics instead of federal policy because of growing concern with how some police departments in the state treat immigrants.
The large crowd marched carrying Mexican flags and anti-trade banners. One banner read in Spanish and English, "Washington protect all workers."
Immigration advocates used May 1 to advance their message.
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