The SPD is using its Gang Unit to do counterintelligence against protesters.

(THREAD)

(1/11)

Generally speaking the SPD's gang unit is tasked with investigating gang-related street crimes, like drive-by shootings, fights and drug trafficking.

They can be identified by their cobra patch. Probably a reference to the Stallone flick (or Karate Kid)
(2/11)

However, part of their mandate includes political "extremism."

Leaked emails btw Gang Unit Dets. Wade Jones & Ben Hughey show "anarchists" and Earth Liberation Front on the "gang list" (also Juggalos.)
(3/11)

The GU is a major point of contact w/ the feds. Greg Tomlinson, a member of the Gang Unit, was part of a Joint Terrorism Task Force. He was involved in a FBI sting that nabbed (some would say "entrapped") Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif, a mentally ill man.

4/11 https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-xpm-2013-apr-08-la-na-nn-seattle-terror-sentencing-20130408-story.html

Gang unit detectives have been on the frontlines of every major protest. They helped man the riot lines at Broadway and Pike after CHOP was cleared.

L: Clayton Agate R: Terry C. Bailey

(5/11)

Here's a video of Gang Unit detective Jeremy Pinkerton harassing streamer @slydesilva, who lives in the area formerly known as CHOP

(6/11) https://twitter.com/slydesilva/status/1279107834739736576?s=20

When a protester was tracked down, arrested at her home, and pepper sprayed in front of her child, Gang Unit detective Matt Lilje did the sleuthing.

(7/11) https://twitter.com/daeshikjr/status/1269326575180214272?s=20

Lilje found her Facebook page. Court documents reference memes she posted as evidence that she had homicidal thoughts toward police. Also, the detective insinuates possible ties to "Antifa."

(8/11)

https://patch.com/washington/seattle/videos-seattle-mothers-arrest-go-viral-police-respond

Of course, it makes perfect sense that they fill this role.

Drawing on the works of post-colonial theorists like Fanon, Black Power intellectuals of the 1960s described ghettofication as "domestic colonialism," which breeds insurgency and in turn, counterinsurgency.

(9/11)

In this framework, the police are understood as being like the colonial armies. And gang units are specialized "elite" divisions that manage the violence produced by social inequality—with state violence.

(10/11)

But when atomized, spontaneous responses to the contradictions of domestic colonialism—riots, gang warfare—turn into more self-aware, conscious attempts to organize toward a concrete political objective, naturally Gang Units are repurposed for counter-intelligence/insurgency.END