MSNBC Goes Live To Tense Seattle Alt-Right Rally & Counter-Protests
Images and footage from Seattle of riot-gear-equipped police standing between rallies of the white nationalist group Patriot Prayer and anti-fascist counter-protesters, carried live on MSNBC this afternoon, make clear the tensions that exploded in Charlottesville yesterday are carrying into the last stretch of the weekend.
A couple hours into the rallies, police have managed to keep the groups away from one another. A less eventful, more peaceful and smaller anti-Trump protest was being held in New York’s midtown near Trump Tower.
The Portland-based, pro-Trump Patriot Prayer group had been planning its Seattle rally prior to yesterday’s events and chose not to cancel. A counter-protest was organized by the Greater Seattle General Defense Committee, an anti-fascist group that posted a post-Charlottesville message on its website today: “We may be entering a new stage of struggle. We are determined to meet the challenges ahead of us. We will beat back and defeat the fascists. We must defend each other. That means all of us.”
Footage tweeted by a Seattle Times photographer (watch it below) showed the counter-protesters confronting a shielded line of police, chanting “Let Us March” and spraying the police with Silly String. The incident also was shown on MSNBC.
As of mid-afternoon Seattle time, neither CNN nor Fox News Channel had thrown live to Seattle.
Police blocking Solidarity Against Hate protesters from going to Westlake, getting silly string and glitter from protesters #Seattle pic.twitter.com/aCIOuabfIm
— Bettina Hansen (@bettinahansen) August 13, 2017
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