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Second teen dead in another CHOP shooting. ‘Enough is enough,’ says Seattle police chief

caption: Welcome to CHOP, (Capitol Hill Occupied Protest), is spray painted on the pavement at the intersection of 11th Avenue and East Pine Street on Saturday, June 13, 2020, in Seattle.
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Welcome to CHOP, (Capitol Hill Occupied Protest), is spray painted on the pavement at the intersection of 11th Avenue and East Pine Street on Saturday, June 13, 2020, in Seattle.
KUOW Photo/Megan Farmer

There was another shooting this morning at the CHOP on Seattle's Capitol Hill. A 16-year-old boy was killed, and a 14-year-old is in critical condition at Harborview Medical Center. KUOW’s Casey Martin is in Cal Anderson Park with the latest.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

“Two men are dead. Two men are dead. And a child, a 14-year-old is hospitalized, and we don't know what is going to happen to that kid. Enough is enough here,”said Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best Monday morning.

Witnesses who were there say it was a very chaotic scene. Suddenly, a white car appeared at Cal Anderson Park at around 3 a.m. There are people who are sleeping there, camped out in tents, and suddenly this car started driving around very quickly.

Some people who I've talked to said they jumped out of the way of the car. They were running away from the car worried that it was going to hit them. Shortly after the car left the field, there was an explosion of gunfire, at least a dozen shots. People there said they started running away from where those gunshots were being fired.

There's a group of volunteer medics who are still there. They went towards the gunfire and after the shooting stopped, they discovered that two people had been shot. One of them was killed.

The people that were still there Monday morning said they have no plans to leave. They say that, yes, they do feel endangered at night. They would like to see some sort of increased security — some sort of better coordination with the medics and the volunteer security here.

But the people who are in tents say that they have no plans to leave. They have certain demands that they would like met, including defunding the Seattle Police Department. They would like to see something happen to the East Precinct building that they're camped outside of. And they say, the violence notwithstanding, they plan on staying there for the long haul.

It's unclear what kind of action might be taken to move protesters out of the area. Mayor Jenny Durkan said she wanted to see the city start coming in on Sunday. There were some Department of Transportation people who were there. Some of the barriers have been moved a little bit, but otherwise there is no city presence.

Police were there shortly after the shooting early this morning. Just a few police were there to collect evidence. But aside from that, there was no city presence.

There are dozens of campers still here in Cal Anderson Park; a few dozen camp tents right in front of the East Precinct. And we haven’t heard, even as of this morning, any clear time frame for when the city might be coming back in.

Organizers here say that the violence did not stem from people occupying CHOP. They say that this protest is attracting counter-protesters; it's attracting a lot of people who are not here to protest police brutality — that just the fact that they are here occupying the space is attracting a lot of outside people.

They maintain that they're very, very peaceful and that none of the shootings or any of the violence is coming from within. They say that it's all people coming to the CHOP and creating this violence.

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.

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