Olympia Police, State Patrol prepare for May Day demonstrators
State and local law enforcement are preparing for potential May Day demonstrations Friday and through the weekend. While last year’s celebrations of workers’ rights were peaceful, that was an exception in recent years.
During an Olympia Downtown Alliance webinar Thursday, Police Chief Aaron Jelcick told attendees the department will have an increased presence this weekend, including overnight, and that some officers will be on bicycles and on foot in the city’s downtown core.
Officers will keep an eye on businesses that have been targets of demonstrations in the past, Jelcick said.
Jelcick mentioned two known, formal events planned for Friday, one of which is expected to take place on the Capitol Campus and the other expected to start in west Olympia and end at the Capitol. Immigrants’ rights activists also have planned a caravan that starts in Seattle and is scheduled to end at the Capitol Campus.
However, over the years, the more disruptive issues have tended to arrive via covert action in the middle of the night, Jelcick said, and the department is prepared for that.
Washington State Patrol has heard similar rumblings of a few planned events, though none have permits to hold activities on campus, Sgt. Darren Wright told The Olympian Thursday.
There’s a statewide ban on gatherings of any size through May 4, which applies to the Capitol Campus, Department of Enterprise Services spokesperson Linda Kent told The Olympian in an email.
“We don’t know what to expect, we never completely do,” Wright said. But May Day activity on campus is typical, and the agency plans to have more troopers on campus to protect people who come to demonstrate.
When it comes to enforcing COVID-19 related public health measures, such as social distancing, Wright said the agency prefers an “education and engagement” approach, letting people know about the governor’s current order. If they don’t listen and the approach needs to be escalated, he said, that would be handled on a “case-by-case basis.”
In 2017, nine people were arrested in connection with May Day violence in downtown Olympia that caused more than $50,000 in damage to businesses, according to The Olympian’s previous reporting. Protesters broke storefront windows, threw rocks at police, and fought with onlookers.
May Day 2018 was reported as mostly uneventful, until a group of masked people tagged businesses with anarchy-related graffiti and broke windows downtown May 2.
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