Homeless Advocates Execute Coordinated Assault On Hotel, Attacks An Employee, Takes Over Two Floors

Occupy Wall Street… Occupy GameStop… Occupy… the Red Lion, on behalf of the homeless. Only in Washington State.

Sunday morning an employee was assaulted at the Red Lion Suites Governor Hotel as at least a dozen armed people entered the property carrying axes, knives and batons. The rest of the hotel’s staff fled for the basement.

The coordinated assault was done by hotel guests with reservations. The group, Oly Housing Now, booked 17 rooms at the property and put homeless individuals into them.

Police in Olympia arrested at least a dozen people after they occupied the Red Lion hotel in the 600 block of Capitol Way South near the state Capitol grounds Sunday. In addition to the rioting guests, there were over 30 members of the group on property. They “occupied the 4th and 5th floors and were placing black tarps on the windows,” according to police who had responded to multiple 911 calls.

Employees in the basement continued to shelter in place, and guests in about 40 rooms not associated with the group did the same, while officers obtained a search warrant for the building.

..At 6:30 p.m. Sunday, [after seven and a half hours,] Olympia police along with the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office and Washington State Patrol’s SWAT team entered the hotel and began arresting individuals.


Governor Hotel, Credit: Red Lion

Only 12 of the 45 or more group members at the hotel were arrested after the police SWAT team “conducted a room-by-room search and employees and guests were escorted safely out of the building.” The city’s social services removed the homeless individuals from the property and were working to connect them with other accommodations.

The Mayor of Olympia emphasized that while the physical assault on the Red Lion by Oly Housing Now was “unproductive” addressing affordable housing is a priority and the city intends to lead on addressing “shelter and other basic needs.”

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Only on the left coast to they excuse violent crime as just “unproductive” as long as it is for what they believe to be a good cause.

  2. Only 12 of 45 members were arrested? Pretty sure that is a higher percentage than the domestic terrorists that stormed the US Capitol…..

    That aside – it’s terrifying and everyone of them should be arrested. Not ok.

  3. Riot in the Capitol to kill : oh poor people were only exercising their first amendment rights
    Riot to give homeless a place to sleep : demagoguery
    Neither actions were acceptable. Extremism on all sides is ludicrous.

  4. This stuff is beyond ludicrous.
    Anyone that doesn’t realize how close the US is to moving well beyond the tipping point of anarchy has their heads firmly planted where it should not be.
    American trends always start on the west coast.

  5. Does this qualify as a terrorist attack or is that term reserved for Trump supporters and occasionally muslims?

  6. In Washington state, there have been at least 3 more incidents.

    One Red Lion Hotel was purchased by a city. Soon afterwards, one homeless set his room on fire. A week later, another set his room on fire and set off more than one sprinkler, flooding part of the hotel.

    One Travelodge was rented by a homeless advocacy group for one night but planned to have the homeless residents refuse to leave. It took several days for the police to remove them. In the mean time, regular guests started to move out after a day or so because of the noise.

    A homeless camp near me started. A few days later, my place had an unsuccessful burglary but they busted the lock, which wasn’t cheap to replace and fix. The homeless camp is very wasteful. They throw donated food that they don’t like all over the place.

  7. Mindless would be the correct term for these people – not homeless.Find them other accommodations, that would be called a jail cell. My wife and I are still a couple years away from full retirement. But have plans in the next couple months to travel to the Caribbean to purchase a retirement home. This country is going down a rabbit hole from which it may never emerge .

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