A new strategy has occurred for the radical left rioters – holding hotels hostage with demands to government officials. A group of about 45 homeless individuals recently aligned themselves with the group Oly Housing Now and barged into the Downtown Olympia Red Lion Hotel on Sunday around 11 a.m. local time looking to press the city about providing housing for homeless people.
The Oly Housing Now released a list of demands for permanent housing and wanted the Thurston county to apply for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to pay for “non-congregate” shelter.
Members were wearing all black and had on gas masks, helmets, and goggles, assaulting both staff members and guests. They were armed with hatchets, batons, and knives, and managed to take over the lobby and 17 rooms. Some workers sheltered themselves in the basement to call the police while others attempted to hide wherever they could. One hotel staffer was assaulted and threatened with a knife.
Before the takeover, the group’s leader had booked 20 hotel rooms saying they were for a wedding party. One of the members, Chris Alford, told reporters that members were planning to not leave the rooms until they could see if “FEMA or whoever” could start getting people into housing. Most of the members staying in the hotel rooms did not even know who’d paid for them.
“The group’s demands made no sense. They read like they were copied and pasted from some other community’s struggle because whoever penned them had no context for what’s actually going on in Olympia and Thurston County. This wasn’t activism; this was nihilism. And it caused so much unnecessary preventable harm,” said Renata Rollins, a council member who co-founded a homelessness advocacy group.
The situation was handled quickly by the Olympia Police when the Department started receiving calls from the Ted Lion Inn and Suites. A Thurston County judge granted a search warrant for conspiracy to commit burglary and trespassing that allowed the police along with Washington State’s Patrol SWAT team to enter the hotel and begin taking people into custody.
During the room-to-room checks, members assaulted and taunted the police with flashbangs, pepper balls, and fights breaking out. Agitators repeatedly called the police “Nazis” and punched whoever tried to film footage on their phones. One agitator even reminded officers that she knows their names, where their kids go to school, and where their wives work. 10 people were arrested that night and are facing a number of charges, including burglary and assault.
This isn’t the first time left-leaning rioters have tried to occupy places and demand county officials to develop and pay for more housing projects. Tacoma Housing Now in Fife, Wash. have tried the same occupation at the Travelodge motel. They paid for 16 rooms for one night on Christmas Eve, brought in 40 homeless people, and then refused to pay for the other nights, along with a handful of demands. “We paid for the first night and now we’re demanding that the city and county pay for the other nights we’ve been here,” said local Socialist leader Rebecca Parson.
Democratic politicians continue to instigate and support lawlessness and mob violence in their cities with some real suffering ahead. They’ve given protesters a platform to speak without accountability, and by doing so, assumed it would fit their political agenda. However, these groups don’t want a movement – they want anarchy. It could take decades to repair the damage now that they’ve ran President Trump off, but that’s what they’ve always wanted. Lawlessness and fear instilled in the American people.