Seattle PD Ordered Use Of Force Against “Antifa,” Surveilled ICE Protest, Park Goers From The Sky
The Seattle Police Department (SPD) ordered use of force against "Antifa" during the department’s response to anti Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protests on June 11.
SPD public safety radio recordings show that during the course of law enforcement operations at the June 11 protest in downtown Seattle, an SPD officer with the callsign “CRG1” made an order to use force against a specific political identity when he broadcast, “CRG1, I need that RDF [Rapid Deployment Force] unit that was at Madison and 2nd to push up to Madison and Spring and start pushing these Antifa Northbound on 2nd, or away from us.”
King County Sheriff's Office Guardian One Video Recording. June 11 2025.
Seattle law, SMC 14.04.020, explicitly states the city’s policy to exercise its police powers “free from restrictions because of … political ideology.” The statement to push Antifa made over an official SPD radio broadcast may also violate SPD’s own crowd control policy, which requires the department to facilitate the rights of free speech and assembly, “without consideration as to content or political affiliation.”
The term Antifa itself simply means anti-fascist.
It is totally unclear how SPD officers in the field discriminate who holds the ideologies of anti-fascism and who does not, yet an official directive from SPD’s chain of command made clear that officers were to use force against a specific group of people solely identified by a political ideology. The SPD did not respond to questions about how the department identifies ‘Antifa’ in the field.
Seattle’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) can enforce Seattle’s Human Rights law, which includes the city’s policy to police the public free from restrictions on political ideology. However, the OCR’s communications advisor Sage Leibenson told HardPressed that “our office does not have enforcement jurisdiction over the Seattle Police Department,” despite the statute explicitly stating “The role of the Office for Civil Rights is to enforce the provisions of this chapter in furtherance of this policy.”
The Creep Continues
Seattle city law, SMC14.12.020, includes restrictions against the bulk surveillance of political activity, stating that "no person shall become the subject of the collection of information on account of a lawful exercise of a constitutional right or civil liberty."
However, that’s exactly what happened on June 11. Numerous people were recorded by the King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) Guardian One helicopter camera system at Cal Anderson Park merely standing around in a public park chatting, or sitting on a park bench.
No criminal activity existed whatsoever at Cal Anderson, however, the KCSO video recordings captured numerous Seattleites enjoying a sunny day at the park as part of a normal daily life minding their own business. Without their consent or their knowledge, they were subjected to video recording and retention.
One sequence of recorded video shows the KCSO camera zooming into a pile of protest signs laying down in the grass. When the camera zooms in, the content of the signs becomes legible under the camera’s crosshair:
“Fuck ICE Fuck Trump” “Chinga La Migra!” …among others.
It’s unclear what the specific law enforcement purpose was for these video recordings.
Twelve separate law enforcement users connected and viewed the live stream video feed from Guardian One on June 11 according to KCSO’s surveillance station logs obtained by HardPressed. SPD SWAT logged in to view the live video feed from four separate IP addresses using the same user credential.
In SPD's own words, the event at Cal Anderson and the later protest march from the park to downtown Seattle was a non-event for law enforcement, however it resulted in the collection and recording of video surveillance through a technology requested by the SPD.
The department initially obtained legal approval to use the Guardian One aerial video surveillance technology under false pretenses. Real Change reported that the SPD knowingly included false information in the department’s Surveillance Impact Report which was later approved by Seattle city council in May 2021.
Real Change also found that the KCSO had previously shared their livestream video link with the U.S. Marshals Service, a federal law enforcement entity.
“Never know when this might be useful,” wrote KCSO detective Larry Williams, when he shared the access link.
Now, the U.S. Marshals Service is actively assisting ICE hunt and abduct human beings across the country as part of the Trump Administration’s racial supremacist plans to uproot the fabric of life on this continent, punishing people for their existence inside one political boundary versus another or for speaking up in support of Palestinian human rights.
With ICE now constructing a concentration camp in Florida, disappearing people to a torture camp in El Salvador, abducting a woman having a seizure, and funded with a larger budget than the entire Israeli military, the use of municipal surveillance and its creep into the hands of federal agencies places Seattleites at direct risk of political persecution from right-wing state actors and their right-wing political allies across social media, both working in collaboration.
At the same moment, the SPD is now issuing orders to use force against people identified solely through their political beliefs of anti-fascism.
Other independent reporters also covered the June 11 protests, including Gossip Guy, The Burner and DivestSPD. Their on the ground reporting is extremely important and deserves your support.