Anti-capitalist protesters clashed with police — and “superheroes” — during Seattle's May Day march, local media reported. At least nine people were arrested, police said. “Whose streets? Our streets,” some chanted as they marched through the famously left-leaning city. Others shouted “Anarchy lives” and “The system is failing.” Some marchers handed out fliers that read “Capitalism and the state still rule Seattle.” Seattle is home to the Rain City Superhero Movement — costumed activists who describe themselves as a crime-fighting brigade — and at one point a fight broke out between some of them and a group of anarchists. Police broke it up. Security forces, many wearing body armor, flanked the march on bicycles and trailed protesters in patrol cars and on horseback. May Day demonstrations have become a tradition in Seattle, rapidly gaining momentum in recent years.

Local news station KIRO 7 quoted police as saying hundreds of people wearing masks and black clothing and with backpacks marched for hours carrying signs, flags and banners denouncing the police and capitalism. "I believe in transformative justice and community accountability," one masked anti-capitalist, who marched with a big pink banner that simply read "F--k off," told the Seattle PI newspaper. "These cops that are surrounding us right now are just the later generations of the slave-catchers that caught slaves before; you know, it's just a continuation. It's modern-day slavery, and that's what we're fighting against." Police shot pepper spray at demonstrators, and officers said bottles were thrown at them. A splinter group of protesters set fire to garbage cans in Capitol Hill, a neighborhood known for its progressive politics.