RAND_MR1382

filled out arrest forms.
Police Officials Resign
The final act of the WTO protests was the announced departures of Seattle Police Chief
Norm Stamper, strategic commander Assistant Chief Ed Joiner, Nancy McPherson,
civilian director of the Community and Information Services, and Assistant Chief of
Investigations Harve Fergusson. Those who made public statements regarding their
resignations or retirements said that the decisions had been made before the WTO
protests. Chief Stamper stated that one purpose of announcing his resignation was to
“depoliticize” the investigations into police actions during the protests and “in making
this announcement, I’ve taken my tenure off the table.” The departures of the other
police officials were virtually ignored in the media, although they represent the
departure of three out of seven of the chief’s highest-ranking assistants.
The Seattle police organizations launched a massive public-relations blitz. In one of the
more bizarre actions, police officers began selling T-shirts to local merchants—as if the
police had won some sort of a major victory. The shirts showed the Space Needle
engulfed in a tornado, saying “Battle in Seattle WTO 99.” Mike Edwards, president of
the Seattle Police Officers Guild, said that money from the T-shirt sales would be used to
buy merchandise from downtown merchants and that the items purchased would be
given to charities. The guild also organized a rally to show support for the police. State
Rep. Luke Esser, R-Bellevue, a conservative “law-and-order” advocate, issued a
statement saying that he would be attending the police rally “commending those brave
men and women for working around the clock in treacherous conditions to maintain
law and order during the WTO riots.” The Seattle Times ran a variety of pro-police
articles, including one front-page headline announcing the retirement of a police dog.
CONCLUSION
The WTO protests in Seattle were the largest left-wing demonstrations in America since
the Gulf War. They were also the most successful American political demonstrations of
the decade, if success is measured by the degree of congruence between the protesters’
goals and the effect on public policy issues.
The WTO protests succeeded in the streets through a combination of strategic surprise
and tactical openness. The three key phases of the street actions leading to this success
consisted of the Tuesday morning “swarm,” which blockaded strategic intersections; the
collapse of the police strategy to suppress the Direct Action Network protests while
allowing the AFL-CIO parade; and the failure of the AFL-CIO parade to engulf the Direct
Action Network protests.
Three things distinguished the N30 protests from the others that followed in other cities
and countries. None of the later protests had an AFL-CIO contingent, a rampage of