CHOP Takes Measures To Improve Safety, Will Cordon Off Areas For Drug Use, May Clear Area At Night

After a series of shootings that resulted in one fatality, organizers of the Capitol Hill Organized/Occupied Protest (CHOP) — formerly the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) — say they are taking measures to improve security inside their six-block nation, instituting proposed “safe zones” for drug use and suggesting that CHOP empty at night to prevent violence.

After days of insisting that CHOP was a peaceful, party-like zone for those who want to have an ongoing protest against racism and police brutality, a group of CHOP organizers known as “Voices of CHOP” say they are prepared to take measures to control increasing violence and hope the full contingent of CHOP residents agree.

Voices of CHOP, “a group of BIPOC and white volunteers and activists,” released their proposal for a safe CHOP on Twitter late Sunday.

The “open letter” will be discussed at a meeting of the whole on Monday, but the group wants CHOP to agree to form a specific “safe zone” for drug and alcohol use, which they claim now runs rampant inside the “autonomous zone.” They also want volunteers to police those using the safe zone, keeping intoxicated individuals cordoned off from the group at large so that they don’t instigate violence.