Groups again swept through Olympia Tuesday evening and early Wednesday morning, leaving broken windows and other signs of vandalism in their wake.
Olympia Police arrested three people downtown Tuesday evening after a group reportedly vandalized businesses and threw bottles and rocks at passersby and police.
Later, in Wednesday's early morning hours, a group broke more than two dozen windows at west side businesses, Olympia Police say, including one with workers inside.
"The level to which criminal behavior rose last night both on the west side and downtown is significant," Olympia Police Lt. Paul Lower said.
Downtown Tuesday evening
About 7:30 p.m., about 75 people who had been marching through downtown approached the area near the closed Artesian Commons Park on Fourth Avenue, according to Lower. Members of the group had been reportedly tagging buildings with graffiti and breaking windows, then pulled dumpsters into the street and lit one on fire along with a trash can, Lower said.
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People in the group also reportedly cut the chain-link fence at the park and dragged it into the street, according to Lower.
Lower referred to the group as a "mob" and to their actions as a "riot," saying he uses those words when a group of people is "bent on destroying property" rapidly, as its sole purpose. The group was not carrying signs or clearly trying to get a message out, he said, which differentiates it from a protest.
Olympia Police officers were pulled away from other calls for service, Lower said, and arrived in riot gear. Thurston County Sheriff's Office and Lacey police officers also were called to assist.
Officers ordered the crowd to disperse, and some in the crowd threw glass bottles and rocks at the officers as well as passersby, according to Lower. Many people filtered soout of the area, and police ultimately arrested three people -- a 20-year-old woman from Lacey, a 27-year-old man from Olympia, and a 21-year-old man from Olympia -- on suspicion of failure to disperse and booked them into Olympia's city jail.
Preliminary reports did not show what tactics were used to attempt to get the crowd to disperse, according to Lower.
Later, on the west side
About 1 a.m. Wednesday, police were dispatched to Domino's Pizza on the west side, near Cooper Point Road and Harrison Avenue, Lower said. Employees had called 911 to report a mob was breaking out the business's windows. They had locked themselves in a back room, according to Lower.
An officer conducting a traffic stop nearby arrived and saw a group of about 30-40 people running across the parking lot at the nearby Starbucks and into a wooded area. More officers arrived and found about a dozen people in the wood line and identified them, Lower said.
All together, about 29 windows had been broken at Domino's, Starbucks, and the nearby Safeway grocery store. The department is in contact with management at all three to get video footage, and Lower said the department expects to make arrests.
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