Protesters and police clashed in a violent fashion following an anti-Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protest in downtown Seattle yesterday night. With pepper balls, tear gas, fireworks and other weapons being deployed from the sparring sides, what was originally, and what remained largely, a peaceful protest ended in violence in the late hours of Wednesday night.

The protest, which was connected to a series of nationwide “emergency” protests called “From LA to Seattle,” was the latest in a string of events following the rapidly changing situation that occurred in Los Angeles this past weekend. After ICE attempted a raid in the Los Angeles fashion district, protesters proceeded to block the agents from leaving the scene, and what was once a small situation evolved into a weekend-long chain of protests involving the Marines and the California National Guard. For a deeper dive into the situation that spawned yesterday’s protest, check out our extensive coverage of the LA protests here.

While last night’s protest, headquartered around the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building in downtown Seattle, was heavily inspired by the Los Angeles protests, many of the protesters had their own personal reasons for showing up, sharing how ICE has affected them. “My friend’s girlfriend has dual citizenship,” one anonymous protester said. “They had citizenship here and citizenship in Ukraine. Their house got blown up at the start of the war, so we paid for her to come down here because she had dual citizenship. Trump, last night, flew her back to Ukraine, even with no house, no stuff to do, and nothing to help her.”

As of the time of this story’s publication, eight protesters have been arrested following Wednesday’s situation according to King5 News, and many continue to protest around the entrances and exits of the Federal Building. 

I was in Seattle as a photojournalist to cover the protests last night, and the following is a timeline of events, told from an on the ground perspective, that led to the eventual clash and arrests that would define the march.

From LA to Seattle: The March

At 7 p.m., peaceful protesters filled Seattle’s Cal Anderson Park, a park frequented for similar protest events, also called Capitol Hill, in a community-wide protest organized by a variety of community and political groups. As speakers from the different groups took turns addressing the audience, one speaker, congressional candidate Kshama Sawant, was interrupted by people who claimed she was using the event to promote her own political agenda. One group, Superfamilia KC, later shared on Instagram that, “they (PSL, one of the event organizers) refused to allow undocumented migrants to speak during an autonomous anti-ICE protest.”

However, the controversy around the political speaker quickly subsided, and speeches continued as the crowd rallied in support of their common cause. Before the protest took to the streets, a group of musicians performed a free show for everyone in attendance. 

“We all decided, let’s all get together and play a show,” vocalist Eva Vazquez said. “[We] were like, let’s go play a show at the protest, it felt good. We wanted to bring that [emotion] for people to also feel angry and sad and feel all that in their chest, to get it out in some way. And feel like it’s a safe space to do that.”

After the speeches and performance ended, the protest group, which is estimated to have been in the thousands by KIRO 7 News, took to the streets in a march that would eventually end at the Federal Building 1.7 miles away.

An anonymous protester spoke to me during the march about why they found themselves in the crowd, “Things just keep getting more and more fucking ridiculous. I cannot believe not everybody is out here on these streets right now. This should piss you off no matter who the fuck you are. People are being disappeared off the streets and we don’t have due process.”

“When you don’t check to see if the people that you’re shipping out fucking overseas and over borders, to hostile countries and to concentration camp-like prisons, when you’re not even checking to see if they’re immigrants, that is kidnapping, that is fascism,” the prostest-gear-clad participant continued.

During the march, protesters were met by supporting honks from surrounding cars, and traffic was blocked off by Seattle Police as the marchers got closer to the Federal Building. The protest at this point was still entirely peaceful, with protesters only chanting and spray-painting buildings as they made their way toward their final destination.

However, when they reached the Federal Building, events began to escalate. At first, protesters surrounded the building, working together to block all the vehicle exits with scooters, trash cans and other debris. At this time, protesters also grouped up in front of the building, some to listen to the final few speeches by the event’s organizers, others to start leaving their mark on the now spray paint-covered building.

The Protest: After Dark

Eventually, what was at one point surface-level vandalism became something more, with windows getting broken by thrown objects and doors barred shut. At this point, some of the protesters from the beginning had started to leave, but the more impassioned protesters stayed as their chants turned more direct and their actions became more destructive.

The escalation culminated in the lighting of a dumpster fire, where multiple fireworks were also detonated in the middle of the crowd of people, which led to cheers and clapping from the crowd. Smoke billowed out of the dumpster, and as the sun set the surrounding area was almost entirely engulfed in smoke and the chants of the protests that were caught in the wind.

At some point between when the dumpster was lit and when the fireworks went off, Seattle Police had quietly surrounded the area, blocking off every major street that led toward the now isolated and energetic group of protesters. 

When one group leader shouted out, “The police are surrounding us, we have to be ready to move,” the energy in the streets very quickly shifted. Some began to cheer and chant at the idea of this eventual confrontation, others almost immediately started running in every direction, trying to avoid the now surrounding position of the Seattle Police Department.

And only a few minutes later, the conflict began. Protesters marched up Marion Street to face the dozens of police officers that awaited them up the hill. A majority of the officers were on bikes, but surrounding officers carried batons, pepper ball launchers and other more direct crowd control methods. They stood in a tight formation, clearly awaiting the protesters’ arrival.

Now, face to face, after a moment of silence, the protesters threw fireworks at the police, and chaos ensued. After the first firework exploded, so did the police, charging downhill on their bikes straight into the crowd of protesters. Some were tackled and handcuffed on the spot, others pushed further back toward the Federal Building where a new frontline was established.

Media at this point were everywhere, and police were actively detaining the remaining protesters and controlling the situation from every angle. Fire trucks arrived and put out the dumpster fire, and two vans left the scene after being filled with the protesters that were arrested prior. 

At this point, while police still maintained a heavy presence, the bulk of the protesters had either left or retreated to much further positions. And just like that, it was all over.

The Nation, and the Trump Administration, Respond

Seattle wasn’t the only city that held a “From LA to…” protest. From coast to coast, city to city, people in places including New York, Texas, Illinois, North Carolina, Nevada and many others saw similarly named anti-ICE protests, many of which ended in arrests and curfews being enforced.

At this point the National Guard is still arriving in Los Angeles, and Trump has stated that his response to any similar situations that arise in other states will be the same as it was in LA. Despite the isolated scale of these protests, with many of them being peaceful, participants have still been called “rioters” and “illegal criminals” by multiple political officials in the White House, including Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for the White House.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly stated that if police were “threatened” in a way similar to that of Los Angeles, Trump could be at liberty to federalize the National Guard and deploy them in even more states across the nation. Texas’s own governor ordered 5,000 Texas National Guard members to enforce a curfew he applied late last night.

Many outlets are now calling this a historic power grab by the Trump administration, and many political figures, namely Gavin Newsom, California’s current governor, have stated that Trump’s increased action against these originally peaceful protesters is what has escalated the situation to violence and the levels of excitement it has currently reached. Something which Newsom says could directly help Trump increase his already historic control over the federal government.

Regardless of what comes next, two major events are happening simultaneously this coming Saturday. Thousands of protests are planned as part of a nationwide movement called “No Kings,” similar to the previous “Hands Off” series of events that swept the nation just a few months ago. That same day however, Trump is hosting a military parade, the first of its kind, which is estimated to cost anywhere from $20 to 40 million in government funds.