Nearly 1,000 healthcare workers and union supporters gathered at Harborview Medical Center on Sunday before marching north through Capitol Hill. The march drew approximately equal numbers of teachers, activists, and community members at Seattle Central, creating a coalition of public sector workers focused on immigration enforcement and gun violence concerns.
Lucas MacDonald, an advanced registered nurse practitioner with Harborview Mental Health and Addiction Services, spoke to the healthcare workers’ perspective during the rally. “Alex Pretti was one of the best of us. He was a leader in his ICU. He led them through Covid chaos, mentored younger nurses. As a former ICU nurse, I guarantee when the emotions ran high, he remained calm, and he is dead, killed by some gassed up ice goons who, in a panic, pinned a man down and executed him in the street. We can’t stand for this. We have to stand up against this darkness that descends on our country. We can’t let bullies and thugs define what patriotism is. We serve our country too. We put on masks to protect our patients, not to terrorize neighbors. We put on masks to protect our families, not to murder people in the streets.”
Jesse Hagopian, an educator, writer, and activist, addressed the crowd during the rally. “The world has grown cold and frost is spreading even throughout the places that are supposed to be there to nurture and support our kids and to shelter them, like our schools,” Hagopian said. “In a time when schools can be turned into perilous border crossing areas, when learning is paused by the threat of immigration raids, we are forced to confront a truth that we can no longer deny, that winter is no longer just coming. Winter is already here. The winter for democracy, the winter for justice, the winter for compassion, the winter for the vulnerable, the winter for truth is here. It is winter in America, and we are rapidly confronting an ice age.” He continued: “Yet as sudden as this cold frost is felt around the country, the violence of state repression did not just suddenly appear.”
From Seattle Central, the march continued down Pine Street before turning left onto 2nd Avenue and heading into downtown Seattle. The procession moved through the commercial core as participants chanted “No justice, no peace. No ICE in our streets.” Hundreds of demonstrators gradually left the crowd along the route and the march concluded at the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building, where the remaining participants gathered for a short rally.
The Dignity Virus 