From George Floyd to CHAZ

This chapter applies insights from the Elaborated Social Identity Model, riot diffusion, and policing practice to the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle. Demonstrations that began peacefully on May 29 quickly escalated into one of the most sustained episodes of U.S. unrest. Detailed reconstruction of the opening days shows how tactical decisions – early reliance on indiscriminate force, low thresholds for unlawful assemblies, and the absence of dialogue – undermined legitimacy, fostered oppositional identities, and escalated conflict. The abandonment of the East Precinct on June 8 and the emergence of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) symbolised the collapse of police–community relations and deepened the city’s legitimacy crisis. Drawing on police, media, and community data, this chapter situates these events within Seattle’s longer protest policing history, where reformist rhetoric was undercut by classical assumptions that left the department vulnerable. Seattle thus became a transatlantic test case of the democratic dilemma: the clash between political demands for coercion and the operational necessity of rights-based policing. This chapter concludes that unrest was not inevitable but interactionally produced, illustrating how coercion without legitimacy can destabilise public safety and raising questions about whether facilitative models can be institutionalised in fragmented U.S. policing.