Last Updated on June 12, 2020
Warlord Raz Simone of Seattle’s CHAZ has declared that he and other organisers only have guns to fight off the threat of “white supremacists.”
The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or CHAZ, set up as an anarcho-syndicalist commune, was recently taken over by Raz Simone, an effective warlord, who has been dubbed the “Black George Zimmerman.”
In a video posted to the CHAZ subreddit, a journalist interviewed Warlord Raz, and asked him why he has “a holster for a side-arm, but no side-arm,” querying whether the group was “expecting trouble.”
“No, that’s like symbolic,” Raz replied. “We have that… we were watching the perimeter, and had calls about white supremacists coming up, so for a second some of us brought arms and watched the perimeter, but that’s not what’s happening now,” he continued.
While the CHAZ and Warlord Raz may not have guns on the streets right now, this could change at the drop of a hat. There is a large degree of tension within the community now, with a number of people questioning Raz’s leadership, and arguments about who has authority to deal with the police.
You can watch the full interview with Simone on the official CHAZ subreddit.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, has confirmed meeting with the leaders of CHAZ. In a display of historical revisionism, Durkan claimed that the CHAZ has always been autonomous and she is willing to work with the “organizers and community” to make their twin cities safe, succumbing to the demands of the protestors
With his authority, it seems that Raz and his minions have reportedly started to extort protection money from businesses within CHAZ.