Law enforcement officials are urging the Seattle Police Department to retake control of the East Precinct after hundreds of demonstrators overtook Monday the six-block area that surrounds it. Officers effectively abandoned the area during violent clashes with demonstrators calling to defund the police. Demonstrators have since set up occupancy in that section of downtown Seattle and have renamed it “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” (CHAZ). SEATTLE 'AUTONOMOUS ZONE' HAS ARMED GUARDS, LOCAL BUSINESSES BEING THREATENED WITH EXTORTION, POLICE SAY“It can’t continue like that,” Jim Fuda, a law enforcement expert and the director of law enforcement services for Crime Stoppers –­ which works with SPD –­ told Komo news. Michael Solan, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, told Fox News' Laura Ingraham on Wednesday that the occupy-style demonstrations have gone too far and "is absolutely unreasonable activism."

Source: Fox News June 11, 2020 17:26 UTC