I took part in Occupy Seattle's Port Shutdown protests. When I got home I looked at the coverage and was incensed by the inaccuracy in the Seattle PI's account by an anonymous reporter.
Here is the part of the account I objected to:
Occupy Seattle protests at port lead to skirmish, arrests
Police said protesters threw flares, paint and rebar. One officer was hurt after being struck with paint. A seattlepi.com reporter witnessed one burning flare lobbed at police during the confrontation, as officers ordered the protesters to move and began wading into the crowd.
So of course I had I had to call it out in a comment.
I was across the street and two sets of railroad tracks from the barricade the protesters built, watching the police on horseback forcing the crowd across the street watching the scrum on the other side of the street with a couple of other protesters about 25 feet from the nearest police officers when the flare was thrown. It landed on the far side of one of the two sets of railroad tracks from the police officers landing much closer to us than any police officer...
Now for the photos.
Arriving at Hasrrbor Island.
Here are some of the protesters shortly arriving at Terminal 18.
They quickly found lots of debris to make a barrier with across the railroad tracks.
This picture was taken shortly before a large number of Seattle Police arrived.
Then unfortunately my camera's battery died.
I've never seen flash-bangs thrown into a densely packed crowd before. There was also pepper spray and the treat of being trampled by the SPD's horses. There were 11 arrests reported. The protesters under arrest were lined up to be loaded into a paddy wagon when we gave them a rousing cheer from the other side of the police line. As I made the long drive home the Seattle Protest was NPR's top story at the top of each hour.