SEATTLE: #BlackLivesMatter Activists Shut Down Bernie Sanders Speech

The Seattle Times reports:

A Seattle speech by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was pre-empted in a chaotic confrontation Saturday afternoon with a pair of Black Lives Matter protesters, who took the stage and refused to let him speak. The Vermont senator, who has drawn huge crowds around the country, was to be the star attraction and final speaker for a rally at Westlake Park to celebrate the 80th birthday of Social Security and the success of other anti-poverty programs. But his afternoon plans were scuttled by protesters determined to turn attention instead to Sunday’s anniversary of the shooting by a white police officer of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Mo. Later in the evening, Sanders received the reception he’d expected from the Seattle area as the progressive alternative to Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton. An estimated 15,000 supporters packed Hec Edmundson Pavilion and an overflow area as Sanders took the stage to thunderous applause and delivered an hourlong populist stemwinder about his plans to wrest the country from the control of billionaires.