Update: Guenzler was still in custody in Thurston County jail as of 4:40 PM Tuesday, December 8, 2020.
Thurston County officials have set bail at $50,000 for a 27-year-old Port Orchard 27 man accused of shooting and pistol-whipping two different people during a rally in Olympia earlier this month. Chris Guenzler’s bail is $25,000 for each of the two charges, first-degree assault and second-degree assault. Furthermore, the court has ordered that he cannot possess or reside in a home where he may have access to firearms. A pre-trial report indicates that he currently lives with his parents in Port Orchard, stores guns in his room and that his father has a gun safe in the home where additional guns are presently stored.
On December 5, multiple journalists aligned with both the left and right media report capturing video of Guenzler pistol-whipping an individual, then waving his firearm before placing it back in its holster. Through various videos obtained through social media, it was noted he was tracking a specific subject as he discharged his firearm. Guenzler was taken into custody following a review of this evidence and was cooperative but noticeably nervous during questioning.
Guenzler’s social media profile showed a years-long pattern of supporting white nationalist ideology. He was attending a pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” rally in Olympia and was caught on camera committing numerous violent acts during the afternoon. Guenzler is currently awaiting arraignment in Thurston County Jail, which the court has set for December 22.
Community manager Ty Steele contributed to this story.
Thurston County officials have charged Christopher Michael Guenzler, with 1st-degree and 2nd-degree assault after shooting a protester on Saturday afternoon in Olympia, Washington. Guenzler was being held without bail and did not have an attorney as of this morning. If the district attorney pursues both charges, Guenzler could be looking at a maximum of 45 years in prison.
On Saturday, Trump supporters and anti-maskers planned a rally in Olympia, Washington. They are following baseless and unproven claims of widespread election fraud at a national and state level and that COVID is a hoax.
Multiple journalists aligned to the political left and right caught the incident on camera. Guenzler, wearing a lime green sweat jacket with a “don’t tread on me” graphic, brandished a sidearm earlier in the protest. Counter-protesters and Trump supporters got into a scuffle, with the Trump supporters charging as counter-protesters were moving back.
You can hear multiple paintball rounds being fired in the videos while counter-protesters are struck, ironically, by poles with American flags on them while the flags land on the ground. One of the Trump supporters also deployed bear mace. Guenzler pulls his sidearm again and fires a single shot into the crowd. Protesters from both sides make an audible gasp after the sound of gunfire, and both groups back away.
During the melee, police did nothing to divide the protest groups and only observed. According to social media, the victim, who has not been identified, received a single gunshot wound. Guenzler was also identified at the anti-mask rally outside of Governor Jay Inslee’s house on Thanksgiving day. During that protest, 50 to 75 anti-mask protesters, some armed, blocked the road while sharing a potluck meal. During speeches that followed streamed live by journalists, protesters got increasingly angry, with some calling for violence and criticizing Loren Culp, a failed gubernatorial candidate, for directing them to stop engaging in direct action. The governor was not at his Bainbridge island home, and no direct threats were made against the governor. At that event, Washington state police aided protesters by blocking the road.
Guenzler’s social media footprint shows strong alignment to the Trump campaign and far-right organizations. His profile includes pictures with confederate flags in 2016. He is a graduate of Port Orchard High School, and according to his social media profiles, attended Kitsap High School for some time. His profile shows an affinity to sexualized content, guns, Trump, and white supremacy.
Stop the steal is a baseless Qanon conspiracy theory. The claims include that dead Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez tampered with Dominion’s software, a voting machine company. Recent additions to the idea include boatloads of illegal ballots arriving by ship from North Korea to a port in Maine.
In Georgia, Stop the Steal protesters advocate not voting on January 5, 2020, Senate runoff. The special election in Georgia will decide which party controls Congress’s upper chamber, with significant implications for the incoming Biden Administration. The idea being, that by not participating, impossible vote results will come out of counties, including “negative results” for the GOP candidates. Georgia has done two recounts and one audit of their results from November 4 and found no fraud evidence.
The Trump Administration has filed dozens of court claims at the local, state, federal, and with the Supreme Court of the United States. In total, 46 court cases have been thrown out due to lacking evidence or merit, including by judges appointed by Trump. Joe Biden won the US election by more than 7 million votes in the popular vote, and with 306 delegates from the electoral college. As of Friday, 279 electors have been certified for Biden. The electoral college will meet on December 14, 2020, to cast their votes for president.
A court date for Guenzler has not been set.
Approximately 75 to 100 protesters marched through the Capitol Hill area on Monday to recognize the 21st anniversary of the WTO riots. The march also marked 180 days of continuous protest in Seattle. The protesters, dressed mostly in black, gathered in Cal Anderson Park before moving over five miles.
With Lt. Diamond on LRAD, Seattle Police arrived within minutes of the marchers moving onto Broadway. The protest continued down Broadway before turning into Seattle University outside of Swedish Hospital. Seattle police declared that protesters were blocking hospital access over the LRAD system, while nearby SPD officers mocked COVID restrictions.
A couple of protesters broke windows at a Starbucks on 12th Ave, while the smell of fresh spray paint hung in the air. Shortly after, Seattle police bike officers started to follow the protest, while a squad of approximately ten officers moved on foot. Seattle police discussed targeted arrests as they closed in on the protesters.
At East Madison Street and 16th Ave, Seattle police took three into custody during the night’s first arrests. During the arrest, someone threw a glass bottle at officers. Using their LRAD, a warning was issued to disperse immediately. SPD claims that multiple bottles and rocks were thrown during the arrests on the Seattle Police Twitter feed. Video taken during the arrests by numerous journalists and streamers do not support their version of events.
The protest snaked through residential areas that Seattle police were pushing the protest group through. Despite moving protesters into neighborhoods, the Seattle police were issuing “apologies” via LRAD for the disruption. Protesters moved dumpsters, construction barricades, rental scooters, and recycle bins into the road to slow SPD officers’ advance.
During the march, Seattle police deployed pepper spray on several protesters, who were seen being treated by medics. There was an additional arrest, however, it was a couple of blocks from the leading protest group. The Seattle Police blotter states the arrest was for property damage.
The protest moved north toward Volunteer Park, passing Uncle Ike’s on 15th Ave East. The group paused only briefly at the controversial cannabis store, where there were sounds of windows being struck. There did not appear to be any broken windows at the store, and the Seattle Police blotter made no mention of any damage.
Seattle Police officers caught up to the protest group and declared the march an unlawful assembly. As the group moved north, SPD maintained less than a 20-foot gap between themselves and the protesters, often only being a few feet away.
During this push by Seattle Police, multiple protesters claim an officer used a racial slur against protesters, calling one of them a n****r. During this same time, we could hear Seattle Police officers disparaging Seattle Public Schools and COVID restrictions in response to a protester chant to the tune of A-B-C-D.
Protesters took a return route to Cal Anderson Park, with significant amounts of graffiti in their wake. Seattle police made one more charge into the protest group, grabbing one individual on the sidewalk and immediately releasing them back into the protest group. The final charge appeared to be an act of unprovoked aggression by officers as the protest was winding down.
Police assets involved included the previously mentioned LRAD system, two vans, several police vehicles, and the SWAT team Bearcat. Protesters returned to Cal Anderson Park around 10:30 PM, and Seattle Police disengaged the protesters.
The Seattle Police Department’s Community Response Group were waiting outside Mayor Jenny Durkan’s home in the Windermere neighborhood of Seattle on Saturday when protesters from the Everyday March arrived.
The police, dressed in riot gear and armed with “less lethal” weapons — along with other munitions — immediately gave a dispersal order to the peaceful demonstrators, witnesses said.
The SPD also stopped and cited every vehicle that was part of the “car brigade,” according to an EDM organizer. The vehicles were there to keep protesters on foot safe from road traffic.
A small group of officers was still on-site when we arrived on the scene.
Today represents the 155th day of continuous protest in Seattle.
This is a breaking news story.
A vehicle drove through protesters outside of the Seattle West Precinct police station, striking at least three protesters with reports of at least one injured. A group from Seattle’s Every Day March, on their 151st day of protest were outside of the police station when a car exited from a parking garage and drove through the crowd. Reports from the scene indicate the driver is an Amazon security guard, who was asked by protesters to drive a different route but instead drove through the group. Seattle Police are reporting they have a driver in custody.
Earlier reports of Seattle car brigade drivers being ticketed appear to be untrue based on video from the scene, with drivers issued written warnings.
Among the victims was a person who was with Summer Taylor and Diaz Love on July 4, when Taylor was killed and Love gravely injured in an early morning motor vehicle attack while protesting on Interstate 5. Washington State Patrol had closed the freeway, but left access to the off-ramps open.
Video shows a large group outside of the precinct, and screams of terror as the car drove through the protesters. After there was a scene of chaos with Seattle Police working on issuing written warnings to the car brigade drivers and later harassing Every Day March leaders while they were trying to leave.
This is at least the sixth car attack against protesters in Seattle since June 7, 2020. Nikolas Fernandez drove his car into protesters on June 7, shooting one in the arm before surrendering to the police. Fernandez has been charged with felony assault. Retired Seattle police officer Molly Clark drove her car through a Seattle protest while hurling racial slurs. Clark retired from the Seattle Police Department was never charged. A Doordash driver drove through the bike brigade during a march, clipping a person and destroying a bike. That driver was never charged. Dawit Kelete drove his Jaguar SUV into protesters on I-5 in the early morning hours of July 4. He was arrested and has been charged with vehicular homicide and reckless driving.
Seattle Municipal Code Section12A.12.015(A)(4) allows protesters and vehicles to block traffic and be in the street while exercising their First Amendment rights.
Renee Raketty contributed to this story.
The video includes strong language, discussion on violence, and police activity.
An estimated crowd of 1500 assembled on Capitol Hill to march in recognition of 150 days of continuous Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle. Assembling at Cal Anderson Park, once the heart of CHOP, at 6 PM, the crowd continued to swell as a host of speakers and organizers addressed the enthusiastic crowd. Three black-owned businesses did a brisk business before protesters assembled for their march.
The march route went through downtown and stopped briefly at the West Precinct. The Seattle police reported graffiti was painted on the ecology blocks that surround the building, and some bottles were thrown. We witnessed fresh graffiti but did not see, nor hear any bottles. The march then went to Westlake, where there were more speeches by organizers and black leaders, a candlelight vigil, and live music by the Marshall Law Band. During this time a group of an estimated 100 protesters broke off and moved traffic barricades into the street according to Seattle Police Department reports.
For the return to Capitol Hill a smaller group, who had attended for over four hours, marched back to Broadway and Pine. As the evening march concluded, a large group from ENDD in black bloc, marched east on Pine before turning north on 11th. A resident of Capitol Hill reported that eggs had been thrown at the East Precinct and there was fresh graffiti.
Seattle police then appeared in force heading west on Pine and drove at a high rate of speed north on 12th. When our team moved to investigate, a large group of protesters rounded the corner at 12th and Pine, heading west, with Seattle Police chasing them with dye enhanced pepper spray and batons. No pepper spray was deployed, and upon our arrival with cameras, SPD released two they were just taking into custody and told the third person, “take a walk.” One was held by SPD while one community member yelled from a window and another protester heckled officers. Ultimately the individual was released.
A flyer distributed online over the past week had stated the purpose of the march: “Bellevue is home to the richest people in the world — it’s time to wake them up…”
The group gathered at Downtown Park in Bellevue, WA, before marching through the downtown streets of the city. They chanted familiar slogans to those watching nearby, such as “Off your phones and into the streets.”
Several observers cheered as the marchers passed and some, dressed in their gowns, even left nearby bars and restaurants to join in. A baby could be seen marching as well as one woman who described herself as a “grandma.”
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”2″ gal_title=”October 24 Bellevue Protest”]Not everyone was as enthusiastic. About 15 individuals also followed the march with their cell phones or cameras while live-streaming the demonstration. Neoconservative media personality Katie Daviscourt was among them.
Local initiative celebrity and former gubernatorial hopeful Tim Eyman was also walking alongside the police on the sidewalk. Supporters of Donald Trump, Loren Culp, and the police were out in force near the intersection of NE 8th Street and Bellevue Way NE. One young man on his bike yelled “race traitors” at some of the white marchers.
A heavy police presence tracked the protesters’ every move. The Seattle Police Department and Port of Seattle Police were also there providing support to local law enforcement under a mutual aid agreement. Uniformed Washington State Patrol officers provided added security to the Bellevue Square Mall.
As the march continued downtown, a “civil emergency” was declared by the City of Bellevue. Cell phones on all sides suddenly lit up and the emergency alert tones filled the air. The notice read:
“The City of Bellevue has declared a civil emergency and enacted a weapons ban in the downtown area due to an imminent threat of injury to persons and property during protests tonight (Saturday). Please avoid the area.”
The march resulted in no significant property damage and bike officers only intervened twice to separate the marchers from their critics.
The biggest impact of the demonstration may be on the Bellevue economy and lost tax revenue. Many businesses closed early and hired private security at their own expense. A few businesses appeared to have also boarded up their windows. Furthermore, the overtime for the responding law enforcement agencies is likely to be significant.
June 15, 2020
Dear President Donald Trump:
I am writing to you today to thank you for the last three-years-and-one-hundred-and-forty-seven-days of your presidency. When you were elected, you promised you would unite the American people together uttering the words, “When America is united, America is totally [sic] unstoppable.” So here we are, Mr. President, three years and 147 days later. I’m so proud as an American to see you have fulfilled your promise to unite us.
Through your divisive words and actions, good Americans from sea to shining sea are uniting. Your great words about Charlottesville, where you declared there were “very fine people, on both sides,” and you were pleading to not rush to judgment. In contrast, how quickly you condemned protesters in Minneapolis without wanting to learn more. Yes, Mr. President, you are uniting the country.
As you tightened the rules of legal immigration in the name of defending America, you placed asylum seekers and those seeking the light of freedom into the textbook definition of concentration camps. They shivered in the cold, unwashed, lacking medical treatment, a place to sleep, and even basic shelter in some cases. They died of preventable diseases, documented beatings and rapes by guards, and murdered at border crossings.
Peoples of the world, trying to escape the specter of violence, government abuses, and crushing poverty, had their children taken from them and placed in inhumane conditions. The same children were misplaced in government bureaucracy and malfeasance while their parents were deported. Yes, Mr. President, thank you for uniting us. The same children remain packed in unfit conditions, exposed to abuse, negligence, and COVID-19.
Your attacks on the free press in words and deeds have made the United States one of the most dangerous places on the planet for reporters and photographers. When faced with overwhelming evidence that the government of Saudi Arabia murdered a reporter from an American newspaper, you only gave it passing mention. Today as I write this, the news agencies that once supported you have grown weary, and cracks are forming. When confronted with their concerns, with their realization that no amount of spin can put you in a favorable light, you attack what was once your allies. Yes, Mr. President, you are uniting us with your actions.
You promised to bring dignity back to the White House and to be the hardest working President in history. For three years and 147 days, we’ve watched you use Twitter for diplomacy, spend your days watching TV, playing golf at taxpayer’s expense, and when faced with a crisis from your beloved people right outside your door, cower in fear in your basement bunker. Yes, Mr. President, you are uniting us.
You promised to control the deficit, balance the budget, and drain the swamp. Yet during a period of economic prosperity that you inherited, your tax cuts didn’t benefit 90% of Americans, enriched the top 10%, and grew our nation’s deficit by 5.2 trillion dollars in just three years 147 days. A debt that our children and our children’s children will inherit with inflation and lost prosperity. Our economy entered recession before the first COVID-19 death was reported on our shores, and you could count the active cases on one hand. Yes, Mr. President, you have united us.
Your authoritative and awe-inspiring words found within each of your Twitter broadsides vilified our friends and allies. You insulted our closest neighbors and most significant trading partners in Canada and Mexico. You have brought us to the brink of a cold war with China, left the dictatorial government of North Korea laughing at us, encouraged the Russian state, and left the globe wondering what has happened to American greatness. Yes, Mr. President, you have united us.
You claimed that the government has no place in regulating business. So you gutted environmental and wildlife protection, while placing tariffs, also know as price controls, on goods and services. The prices of those goods and services hurt businesses and ordinary Americans alike, removing any benefit from your tax cuts, and not coming close to filling the deficit hole as you promised. The farmers, coal miners, and factory workers you promised to help have been abandoned while foreign nations scammed you for tax breaks.
Your incredible response to the COVID-19 epidemic has exposed to the world that the disease ravaging our nation is not just a virus, but the impotent reaction from your leadership. Emergency rooms became overwhelmed, front-line medical workers died due to a lack of personal protection equipment, your agencies scammed by predatory companies and junk science, and our leaders in science and medicine silenced. One-hundred-and-fifteen-thousand dead Americans from what you declared was a hoax, was just the flu, would magically go away once warmer weather came. As I type this, the southern and southwestern states are being devastated by your hoax. Your playbook of distraction and Twitter diplomacy didn’t work against a virus. The world has learned that we are nothing but a paper tiger, with fragile infrastructure and resources.
Despite all of these missteps toward greatness, your support hasn’t wavered. Your staunchest allies and enablers have stood by you while trying to steer your course. Yet you continue to ignore the Constitution, jurists, leaders, scientists, doctors, and diplomats that have been attempting to save you from yourself. Yes, Mr. President, you have united us.
As our nation watched in horror at the street execution of George Floyd on a Minneapolis street, his life squeezed from him as he cried out for his mother, the people became united. You went to your same playbook to divide, vilify, and tweet. As the people you profess to love unprecedently protested outside your door, you built a wall, you hid in a bunker and watched the TV you deny you watch. You threatened to send federal troops against your People, to the disgust and disdain of retired and active-duty generals and admirals. You had peaceful protesters pepper-sprayed and beaten for a photo op at a church. As you spoke of law and order from the White House, a house built by slaves, the nation could hear your state-sanctioned violence against the First Amendment in the background. Yes, Mr. President, you have united us.
I want to thank you, President Trump, for the last three years and 147 days. Because of you, your words, and your deeds, I was able to see the hatred and racism that existed right under my nose. I could see what I thought were friends, for what they are. By encouraging the forces that want to destroy this nation, you exposed the great lie that there is equality in the eyes of the law, that the police forces of this nation have just a few bad apples, and make rare, but very public mistakes. I always suspected these were narratives were false, but you provided the proof.
You have united the American people, Mr. President, in a way that I never thought would be possible three years and 147 days ago. We are joined in historic protest from coast to coast and border to border—six-hundred-and-fifty cities and towns across America, from the biggest to the smallest. From marches measured in the hundreds of thousands to lone vigils of one. All these people, united against the hatred, the fear, and the anger you’ve fomented tweet after hateful tweet. Yes, Mr. President, you have united us.
We are united to no longer accept the idea that racism has been resolved in this country, or is just a passing problem. Because of you, the good people of this county who didn’t think these were real issues are now learning that it is deeply rooted in the very things you defend, and rotten to the core.
We see you for what you are, a dotard, barely able to stand on their own, obsessed with what people think of you. A narcissist, staring at their magic mirror, listening only to those who say yes. Outside your bunker, a giant has awoken and been filled with a great resolve to bring about change to our nation. Yes, Mr. President, you have united us.
I have watched first hand since May 30 as Black, white, Latino/Latina, Asian, Hispanic, indigenous, native-born, and immigrant have marched in peaceful protest. I have seen first hand the excessive force applied by our militarized police departments using CS and OC gas on peaceful citizens, firing rubber bullets, striking with batons, shocking with Tasers, and preventing peaceful assembly. My eyes have stung, my lungs have burned, and I have personally carried the wounded as I documented the actions you sanctioned.
The violence was so great that our allies in the United Kingdom have voted to stop selling rubber bullets and teargas to the United States. Violence on the people so troubling that even in South Africa, they are marching for the Black lives in our raging and grieving nation. Yes, Mr. President, South Africa looks more enlightened in the eyes of the world than our country because of your words and deeds.
We are once again the United States of America, Mr. President. We are united against you and those who think like you. We are joined together to bring out meaningful change, for full equality, to demand that this nation treat everyone as equals. Equality does not mean that some will get less, nor is that what We the People want. We want the level playing field the American dream promises for all people. We want our minority brothers and sisters in this great race of life to run that race unshackled, unencumbered, and without the oppression of institutional racism. Mr. President, those of us that want this change outnumber those of you who don’t.
You and your supporters are focused on agitators and those who are trying to discredit this movement. I applaud that, Mr. President, because distraction is useful when you are bringing about change. While you shudder in anger watching your TV and spitting out sentence fragments on Twitter, we are using the most potent weapons we have in the American arsenal. We are leveraging our rights. We are using our right to peaceful assembly. We are using our right to freedom of speech. We are using our right to videotape and photograph, and audio record the transgressions of those who are so comfortable with racism and inaction, that they feel they can freely operate in this connected world with impunity. And, Mr. President, we are sharing those videos, pictures, and audio clips, on Twitter for the world to see. We are using your actions to demand change at a local, county, and state level and, on November 3, at the federal level too.
Had you told me, Mr. President, that you would unite our nation in a singular fierce voice demanding change in just three years and 147 days, I would have said it was impossible. I had expected incompetence and hatred, but I never realized how dark your heart is, how you lack a soul, and how deep corruption runs to your core. You made these things mainstream and revealed the ugliness of America hiding in plain sight behind gossamer curtains. Those curtains, Mr. President, have been torn down.
On November 3, 2020, the American people will decide on whether they want to renew The Donald Trump Show for four more seasons. Forty-million unemployed, the numbers without health insurance exploding, institutional racism and violence defended by you, the Constitution defiled, 115,000 dead from COVID-19 and counting, and protests in 650 cities from coast-to-coast.
Thank you, Mr. President, for uniting us and putting America, for the first time in more than a generation, on a path to greatness. We, the people, are screaming in a singular voice, “no more.”
Three-years, and 147 days.
