Group defaces Capitol, disrupts government momentarily

By ADAM WILSON | • Published May 01, 2008

The Olympian

The Capitol was again defaced with an anarchist symbols today, as a group of protesters caused a momentary commotion in the seat of state government.

The group had a permit to rally in Sylvester Park in downtown Olympia and the Capitol steps , calling for more immigrant rights and an end to the war in Iraq.

The group left the steps and entered the Capitol as a mass, however, trying to disrupt offices there, said Sgt. Ted DeHart of the state patrol, which provides security for the Capitol Campus.

He said members of the group tried to enter the governor’s office and clogged a hallway. Representatives from the office spoke to them, and when they left, anarchist symbols were found scribbled on the walls and outside the building.

There were no citations issued because it isn’t clear which individuals vandalized the building, DeHart said. “We’d love to, but when there’s so many you can’t keep your eye on them all, and they were so dense you couldn’t see the wall.”

Although the commotion was not violent, it did prompt the lockdown of the YMCA Youth Legislature, a gathering of 425 junior- and high-school students in the Capitol this week.

"Our kids were great. All of them went into chambers as directed and continued business as usual," said Janelle Nesbit, executive director of the program.

She said the students were locked in the legislative chambers for about an hour, but had planned to be there already, to hold elections for their officers.

For the state, the incident leaves yet another frustrating stain on the Capitol Campus’ historic buildings. Anarchist and anti-war messages were spray-painted on the Capitol in March – the first time the building had been vandalized in such a way – and some are still visible despite repeated attempts at cleaning.

“We don’t know what these dopes tagging the building are trying to prove, other than stupidity. We’d like nothing more than for some of these people to get caught and brought back here to do the cleanup themselves,” said Steve Valandra, spokesman for the Department of General Administration.

Most of eight marks were quickly erased, but a large anarchist symbol on the delicate sandstone at the building’s entrance posed a problem, he said. The agency already has spent $6,500 this year cleaning up graffiti, more than it spent in all of 2007.