In the summer of 2020, Seattle’s then-Mayor Jenny Durkan gave in to a mob of rioters ostensibly “protesting” the killing of George Floyd by allowing them to take control of several city blocks they dubbed the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, and later “CHOP for Capitol Hill Organized Protests.” The eventual outcome of permitting such lawlessness was entirely predictable.

The police-free zone lasted for less than a month before the murder of a 16-year-old male finally spelled its end. And for those caught within that urban anarchy zone during those three weeks, it was anything but peaceful, just, or crime free. As noted in a federal lawsuit, business owners and residents suffered “extensive property damage, public safety dangers, and an inability to use and access their properties” even as their Democrat city leaders elected “to actively endorse, enable and participate in the occupation.”

Durkan, seeking to appease those calling for defunding the police, had orders written up for the Seattle Police Department to transfer/abandon their East Precinct building to the Black Lives Matter activists/rioters. Indeed, it has been revealed that Durkan had the city’s Department of Finance and Administrative Services draft a resolution for transfer of property, the police building, to Black Lives Matter. While the formal resolution was apparently never fully realized, it does reveal just how far Durkan was willing to go to virtue signal her commitment to radical leftist cause.

Now, the city is being deservedly sued by those who suffered under the CHOP occupation, and it will be taxpayers who end up footing the bill. This should serve as a lesson against electing bad leadership; unfortunately, too many of Seattle’s residents will continue to pull the lever for politicians who favor the lawless radicals over and against law-abiding citizens. Is it a massive intellectual psychosis? One wonders.

It appears that part of the answer to that problem is the deliberate effort to hide the record. Emails and texts between Seattle city officials during the CHOP fiasco have “mysteriously” been deleted. Communications between Durkan, former Seattle chief of police Carmen Best, fire chief Harold Scoggins, and others have conveniently gotten erased “from their City-owned phones in complete disregard of their legal obligation to preserve relevant evidence.”

We’re sure that, like Hillary Clinton’s 2016 fiasco, the emails were just detailing wedding plans and yoga routines, but come on.

With leadership this corrupt, who can blame the rural residents of the West Coast states for actively seeking means to secede from this urban madness that is controlling their states’ policies? Given that Portland is little different, the eastern region of Oregon has made the most strides in its effort to leave the Beaver State and unite with Idaho. You know — a state that still believes in both individual liberty as well as upholding law and order.