The mayor of Bellingham, Washington, reportedly had to be expelled from City Hall on Friday morning after rioters allegedly campaigned for homeless people.
“It was disturbing,” Mayor Seth Fleetwood, who remained fearless as he asked those in a homeless camp outside the building to pull 25 feet away, told Seattle’s KIRO-TV.
“They knocked on the door and we heard that they had broken it open somehow and that they had entered, and I was advised to go.”
He was taken out to his car at the back door, the station reported. Fleetwood said he could not help comparing it to the rioters who violated the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC on January 6.
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The rioters also spray-painted the outside of the building, the Bellingham Herald reported.
This undated photo shows protesters outside Bellingham’s town hall where a homeless camp had set up.
(City of Bellingham website)
Bellingham police told the Herald about 20 rioters came into the foyer but no damage was done and no one was injured.
The Herald reported that those who violated the town hall left without incident and no arrests were made.
Bellingham is a university town about 88 miles north of Seattle that has been a center for anti-police protests and riots since last spring, including an anti-Biden riot on Inauguration Day that left damage to the Pike Place Market.
The group that attacked Bellingham’s town hall also pulled down an American flag waving outside the building and started stepping on it. Someone could save the flag from the rioters, reports KIRO.
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Fleetwood told KIRO the city plans to ask members of the homeless camp that took root last year to move 25 meters from the building after several problems, including harassment of provincial employees and several fires.
“We are looking for a peaceful end to this camp and if there is confrontation, we will not be the attackers,” he said.
He added that the city provides those in the camp services and supplies and asks that they leave voluntarily.
The rioters also reportedly became hostile to local journalists who accused them of invading their privacy.
One radio reporter said the rioters stole his microphone, spray-painted him, poured hot chocolate on him and tried to take his other equipment, including his iPad. He said the rioters shouted that he was taking “unauthorized” photos of the protest.
“I have never experienced that kind of warfare,” he said according to KIRO. “We had protests in Bellingham and I have never seen anyone act like that.”
The Herald reports that his journalists withdrew for security reasons as they saw other reporters being harassed, as well as an official at HomesNOW !, who is campaigning for the homeless.
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“The conditions at City Hall and the Library’s lawn are completely unbearable, and are greatly heightened by protesters and outside agitators who are not residents of the camp,” Fleetwood told the Herald. “Their actions are a bad service for people who experience homelessness and put them at greater risk.”