In Seattle last weekend, violence broke out—not from the pulpit, but from the pavement.
Pastors and churchgoers, gathered for a permitted worship event in a city park, found themselves besieged by a black-clad mob who attempted to tear down fencing, rush the stage, and shout them down.
The attackers were not counter-protesters in any constitutional sense of the word. They were masked militants whose tactics have become a hallmark of Antifa: organized, aggressive, and aimed not at persuasion but suppression.
To their credit, the Seattle police intervened. Arrests were made. Barricades held. For a moment, law reasserted itself in a city too long governed by hesitation.
Bruce Harrell, elected to lead but seemingly content to triangulate, did not respond with praise for law enforcement or a reaffirmation of Seattle’s civic obligations to neutrality and free expression.
Instead, he questioned the Christian group’s presence—why they had been issued a permit and why their event had not been relocated to a “less provocative” area.
Translated: The fault lies not with the mob—heaven forbid—but those who dared to speak within earshot of it.
This goes beyond appeasement or failed civic leadership. The mayor effectively signaled that the rule of law in Seattle is conditional—and that those who assault Christians may expect indulgence, while those who dare to preach in public may expect scrutiny.
Harrell’s statement is a masterclass in moral evasion. It nods toward “anarchists,” then downplays their aggression with sanitized language like “infiltrated” and “disrupted”—as if masked militants had simply wandered in with the breeze.
Rather than commend his officers or affirm the constitutional right of peaceful assembly, Harrell issued a statement directing the Parks Department to reexamine the permitting process and urging the police to produce an after-action report focused on crowd management tactics and the arrests themselves.
The subtext was unmistakable: those arrested may soon be recast as misunderstood protesters, and the officers who protected the event could find themselves under internal review.
In Seattle, even enforcing the law can become grounds for investigation—if you defend the wrong group.
The mayor then implies that the real danger lies in “far-right” speech held in a historically LGBTQ+ neighborhood. In other words, the public square is now zoned for ideology.
Speech rights may exist on paper but are conditional—revocable if your message strays from the orthodoxy or irritates Seattle’s cringeworthy Mayor LaTrivia, always eager with bureaucratic balm for the mob’s bruised feelings.
The irony here is as thick as the Seattle fog. Mayor Bruce Harrell, now so eager to question the police and the pastors they protected, recently acknowledged an arrest of his own—one he never publicly discussed until local media unearthed it nearly three decades later.
According to court documents reported by KING 5, Harrell was taken into custody in September 1996 in Iowa on suspicion of carrying a handgun, assaulting a person while armed, and resisting an officer in the lawful performance of duty.
The altercation reportedly occurred in the parking lot of a casino while Harrell was living in nearby Omaha. The charges were later dropped.
Only after the episode was exposed did Harrell frame it as a personal formative experience that deepened his commitment to “police accountability.” But that revelation raises an uncomfortable question: Is the mayor’s view of law enforcement shaped by principle or personal grievance and political convenience?
Because when Antifa radicals descended on peaceful worshippers last weekend, the police held their ground, made the arrests, and upheld public order. And yet the mayor’s response wasn’t to praise their discipline—it was to investigate why the church was allowed to be there at all.
So much for accountability.
In Harrell’s Seattle, the line between public safety and political scorekeeping depends on who holds the megaphone and wears the clerical collar.
This is how constitutional principles are hollowed out—not all at once, but incrementally—by reclassifying disagreement as provocation and violence as justified reaction.
Harrell’s response should alarm even those who disagree with the Christian group’s views. The mayor of a major U.S. city has openly suggested that a government-issued permit, lawfully obtained and exercised, becomes illegitimate if the content offends a politically favored group.
This is a declaration of ideological preference enforced by location, bureaucratic review, and the implied threat of future denial of a permit—or withdrawal of police protection.
To be clear: had masked men stormed a Pride rally, or a progressive teach-in, or a drag performance, the political response would be swift and thunderous. There would be no suggestion that the event was “in the wrong place.” There would be no call to relocate it to the margins.
But for conservative Christians in Seattle, the message is clear: your rights exist only where the mob permits them.
That this tactic has become standard on the progressive left is no accident. It is the culmination of a decades-long drift away from liberal tolerance and toward activist absolutism.
We saw it on campus when conservative speakers were run off stage. We saw it in 2020 when Antifa was not only excused but romanticized.
We saw it in statements by politicians like Keith Ellison and Jeremiah Ellison, who openly aligned themselves with radical groups.
And we saw it when Joe Biden, asked to condemn Antifa’s violence, dismissed it as merely “an idea.”
And lest we forget, this isn’t Seattle’s first flirtation with street rule.
Just a few years ago, Antifa sympathizers seized part of the city, expelled law enforcement, and styled themselves a sovereign commune. Some might call that an insurrection—though applying the term to leftist mobs is enough to make Mayor Harrell tumble to his fainting couch.
So, what’s the takeaway for Seattle’s cops? Neutral enforcement of the law will get you a shrug. Restraint in the face of provocation? Ignored. But defend the wrong group—even by doing your job—and the mayor will hang you out to dry while investigating the people you protected.
But ideas don’t hurl bricks. Ideas don’t shove pastors. And ideas don’t dress in tactical black and breach police lines.
This latest episode in Seattle is a case study of the slow erosion of neutral governance under pressure from progressive ideological extremism. The state is no longer the referee. It is picking sides.
When political leaders redefine basic civic functions—like permitting, policing, and protest—as contingent on viewpoint, the Constitution becomes a dead letter.
That is what happened in Seattle. A mayor tasked with upholding public order instead echoed the rationale of those who disrupted it: that particular speech is inherently unsafe and, therefore, undeserving of space.
America’s foundational promise is not safety from offense—but freedom of conscience. That promise was under assault last weekend, both by the masked mob at the barricade and by the man who should have stood against them without hesitation.
Seattle’s pastors stood behind a fence. Mayor Harrell stood behind a fog of moral relativism. And in doing so, he showed which side of the barricade he’s really on.
Charlton Allen is an attorney and former chief executive officer and chief judicial officer of the North Carolina Industrial Commission. He is founder of the Madison Center for Law & Liberty, Inc., editor of The American Salient, and host of the Modern Federalist podcast. X: @CharltonAllenNC
American Thinker
Jesus Christ is King
Comments are closed.