Mayor Lisa Brown issued a 9:30 p.m. curfew, the first such measure since protestors in 2020 marched to support George Floyd.
“Everyone must abide by this curfew. Limited exceptions apply, including law enforcement, emergency personnel, media, people leaving the soccer game at the Podium, residents living in the area, and people going to and from work,” Brown’s directive read.
She made the call in response to hundreds of demonstrators blocked federal agents in Spokane Wednesday evening from leaving a downtown immigration office reportedly with refugees who were detained at court hearings earlier in the day.
The protestors, including former Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart, gathered outside the facility on West Cataldo Avenue in the afternoon just north of Riverfront Park to prevent a bus with the young men from departing to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.
A second protest at Riverfront Park broke out hours after the Stuckart-led event and riot-clad officers began shooting tear gas and making arrests.
Protestors in the park were joined by City Councilman Paul Dillon as officers began deploying gas and pushing against the participants.
At the earlier protest on Cataldo, some protesters deflated the bus’s tires and blocked law enforcement from leaving in patrol cars on the opposite side of the building.
A Spokane Police Department officer spoke over the regional SWAT car speaker system at 7:13 p.m. and ordered everyone present to disperse. The officer gave the demonstrators five minutes to do so. Few left the scene when police warned at 7:22 p.m. that they would use force if the crowd did not leave.
The fracas is arguably the most extreme local showing of resistance, among others in Los Angeles and across the country, to President Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdowns since he took office for the second time in January.
The Cataldo crowd included several prominent politicians, activists and community leaders, including Spokane County Democratic Party Chair Naida Spencer; state Rep. Timm Orsmby; Spokane City Council candidate Sarah Dixit; union advocate and a former Democratic candidate for local, state and federal offices Ted Cummings; Thrive International Director Mark Finney and Latinos en Spokane Director Jennyfer Mesa.
Back in 2003 the city of Spokane Valley was formed, just to the east of Spokane city. If you want to find a near-pure vein of MAGA, look there. It’s in between Spokane and Idaho but is floating toward the latter. The SV Trumpets/QAnons/Fundies would be happy to be part of Idaho but the quandary is, while they’d get lower gas prices for their shitty coal-rolling trucks, they wouldn’t be able to buy their precious weed w/o coming back to civilization now and then.