When Dawn Land arrived at the Port Townsend, Washington City Hall on 15 August, an angry, “threatening” crowd was already waiting. It was 4:01 PM.
“Their goal was to claim that space and fill the city council meeting with their people in order to prevent any of us from speaking,” Land explains. “Unfortunately, they succeeded.”
By the time the city council meeting began, “it would have been dangerous for any of us to walk through the crowd there.”
Land and a small group of less than three dozen people, mostly women in their 70s and 80s, had come to support Julie Jaman, the 80 year-old Port Townsend resident who was recently banned from the city pool for refusing to shower in front of a man.
Whipped into a frenzy by the mayor and the YMCA, which manages the pool, the crowd of hundreds screamed slogans, physically assaulted them, stole and damaged property, all while they “kettled” Dawn and her fri…
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