Olympia Copwatch on Private Security in the Downtown

Olympia Copwatch reports on a campaign in the downtown area to stop the harassment of houseless people.

Earlier this month the Olympia Downtown Alliance, an interest group of business owners and landlords who put pressure and money on the city to cater to their interests at the expense of the rest of us, hired private security group Pacific Coast/Pierce County Security to patrol downtown every night from 8pm-midnight to harass our houseless neighbors and report “suspicious” activity.

In response us and some volunteers got together these past few nights to do some copwatching, hand out Know Your Rights info, and organize bail for any houseless neighbors who get arrested for trying to sleep (thankfully hasn’t been needed yet). While we currently do not have the capacity to do patrols regularly, we are going to do them irregularly as much as we can. We have a table at the artesian well every Thursday 4-5pm for reporting police terror.

If you are interested in getting involved, have any questions, want to report police violence, need help filing a police complaint, or anything else, you can contact us at [email protected]