12-13-2025 - Tumwater WA - Initiative Signature Gathering
What happened on Saturday at Michael T Simmons Elementary School?
How many right-wingers came up from Oregon to sign WA petitions?
WTH did Carleen Johnson post? - How did the city of Tumwater respond?
Initiatives: IL26-638 + IL26-001 + IL26-126 + others?
Drones? - This and more. Long post.
Our Saturday morning started very average, checking national and local news via news aggregator sites. One very high-ranking headline quickly caught our attention: "FBI, Tumwater police warn of possible antifa attack at weekend Let's Go WA event" - from "The Chronicle" - Oh my!
Somehow despite everything we were not aware of all these scary things.
After ingesting what amounted to grok generated garbage from "The Chronicle" we were informed the city of Tumwater did a News Release that appears to refute Carleen Johnson's claims: "To dispel a rumor circulating in the region, we have received no specific, actionable threat reporting from the FBI related to the event." and "we do not share specifics of our preparations".
So off we went to see for ourselves, but not before printing Carleen Johnson's article and Tumwater news release.
When we arrived we spotted a large traffic control trailer sign reading "No Weapons Allowed" and "Gun Free Zone" outside. Hmm.
We were surprised this event was inside the school, in a gym. We assumed it'd be outside. Near an entry a WSP officer was checking bags and we had no problems there. According to him, he was the only WSP officer at the event. We arrived a little late but not a lot of people were inside.
After taking some nothing-special photos and footage that amounts to b-roll we were confronted by who we believe was Darren Littell, the campaign manager for Let's Go Washington (LGW).
Darren asked us who we were and we told him. Darren informed us that he didn't want us taking photos. Darren's reasoning was vague. Darren seemed to imply his reasoning was due to sensitivity, however at that exact moment a right-wing live streamer was right next to us and without a doubt filming everything. Darren didn't really have a response when we highlighted this.
A very short convo took place about press badging but that didn't last because it had absolutely nothing to do with Darren's decision. Darren then asked us to leave. We let Darren know that we're OK skipping out for now but planned on returning. We then went back outside.
Once outside we ran into the only counter protester we'd seen so far and let them know what happened.
A couple minutes later a person who looked somewhat familiar came up and asked a few general questions. We learned this person is a right-wing streamer. During conversation this person told us they were from Portland, and they'd just signed a petition inside. We suggested they shouldn't have signed a WA petition if they're not from WA. We gave them an opportunity to clarify (by suggesting that maybe they weren't actually from Portland, but instead Vancouver) - this person then firmly responded saying they are from Portland, not Washington state. When we pushed again about signing a WA petition while being from OR, they said they just didn't care. If there was any doubt about this person signing a petition while there, we later realized they're in one of our photos, signing a petition.
This raises important questions: How many right-wingers came up from Oregon to sign petitions in Tumwater? - and what happens when these signatures aren't invalidated?
At this point we went to the counter-protest area, and was surprised at how confrontational things already were. Right-wingers were already there creating as much conflict as they could. There were one or two scuffles but we didn't see anything too serious. Moments later we spotted right-wing grift-king, Jonathan Choe. Looking more disheveled than usual, as if he could barely be bothered to put pants on.
From our perspective at peak levels of conflict, LE was not really present in that particular area, compared to later on. Counter-protesters firmly held ground amongst almost constant yelling.
After a while we decided to go back inside, stopping at the lone WSP officer as we checked back in. We joked with the lone WSP officer (us): "just like J6, on the Olympia Capitol campus" it's a serious joke that's mildly entertaining to float by WSP officers while asking them where they were on J6. Anyways, this time it was a lot more crowded inside the gym and speakers were at the podium.
We only got a few minutes of photos and video in before we were approached by security and asked to leave.
Snippets of convo w/Tumwater Officer (TPO): "I just have to say it out-loud right, private event staff has asked that you not come back to the event, and they have indicated to us that for people that do return they are interested in pursuing criminal charges for trespassing, that does not really seem like what we're doing here, so I do appreciate you helping us keep everyone safe and being calm about it, it's unfortunate, your interactions with staff" - (us): "they keep coming up to me, i'm not interacting with anyone at all" (TPO): "if the event staff contacts us again about returning.. you may be subject to criminal prosecution of trespass" (us): "as a journalist in a public school?" (TPO): "private event" (us): "gotta be some money involved - that's really weird and awkward" (TPO): "i agree" - (us): "i'll be around but i will not be re-entering - i don't get it though to be honest" (TPO): "me neither"
After this we had another (general) convo for about 15min with a right-wing signature gatherer/event supporter, who didn't necessarily support us getting removed: (them): "nobody should fuck with you, regardless of what side you're on" - this person then insisted on showing us video footage from their phone of a recent interaction with a Lacey police officer. (them): "Lacey Police, i just stood them down at the new Trader Joe's" - among other things, this person recorded a police officers computer screen inside their patrol vehicle while it was unoccupied, displaying a full screen of some type of information. This person reflected upon their "plain view" right to record.
We returned to the counter-protest area which was just about to start closing out. MAGAs continued their grift-screams (trademark) but there was less of them and eventually almost all the counter protesters left with the exception of about 2-3 people. We didn't catch it at the time, but one of the counter protesters with a megaphone was talking about how the people behind these initiatives have been importing a lot of signature gatherers from other states. This is something we can confirm as at least 5 of the 6 or 7 signature gatherers we've spoken to told us they are not from Washington. If you speak with a signature gatherer, ask where they are from.
It was getting a bit tiresome hearing the non-stop buzzing of drones. We witnessed 2 drones and started asking Tumwater and then Thurston County who's operating the drones. Tumwater PD indicated they were not operating any drones, but speculated there was up to 5 drones. Thurston county confirmed operating one drone, but said they've seen 3. When we commented on the number of drones flying simultaneously, the (active) Thurston County drone operator said "it hasn't been enjoyable" and "they're not on transponders". At least two officers indicated hired event "security" was flying at least one drone. When we commented on the lack of legality of drones being flown we pretty much got a confirmation nod from Thurston County. For those that aren't aware, there's quite a few regulations when it comes to flying drones under these conditions.
During our conversations about drones and since we'd brought "The Chronicle" and Tumwater news release with us, we decided to start showing Tumwater, Thurston County and WSP the "antifa attack" headline and article, along with highlighted areas of the Tumwater city response. Several agreed when we emphasized articles like this do nothing more than make things worse for everyone. We've had this conversation a few times, and one of the first red-flag responses are those who pretend they don't read anything, are somehow unaware, or the general "i don't know" response. We made it clear our encounter with this article wasn't because we were looking for it, or because we read "The Chronicle", but instead because a popular news aggregator site carried it as a high-ranking headline. Some of the responses we received were reflections of inaccuracies. We validated legitimacy and lived experiences, but made sure we didn't head down the media generalizations path. It's critical actual details start getting discussed. We could tell a few weren't hot on the topic but they were also the least engaged, go figure.
After the conversations on drones and Carleen Johnson's article, we hung around to listen to protester/counter-protester discussions. That's about it. One thing we've consistently noticed is the longer you stick around the more likely you'll witness different sides generally having calm discussions.
When we returned from this event and browsed social media posts, we discovered right-wingers posting media of exactly what Darren Littell seemed to imply his concerns were with us. To be clear, when Darren Littell asked us who we were, along with others who asked, we told them. On the topic of sensitivity of those signing, signatures and personal information, we discovered a high-resolution photo by a right-winger with thousands of followers that clearly reveals names, signatures and other information such as the full home addresses of those signing.
Make SURE to check out our prior signature gathering related post on 09-27-2025 @ #LaceyWA
Carleen Johnson article: https://www.thecentersquare.com/washington/article_3b01a46f-51b6-4971-9ae3-81403144e4bc.html
Tumwater Release: https://www.ci.tumwater.wa.us/Home/Components/News/News/9608/554
#Tumwater #TumwaterWA #ThurstonCounty #Olympia #OlympiaWA #OlyWA #LaceyWA #Initiative #Voting
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