Yesterday, Allahpundit wrote about the two elderly women in Portland who stood up to the mob vandalizing and setting fires at a police precinct. Videos of the two women being confronted and splattered with paint by the crowd circulated widely on social media including by Portland police:
This unknown woman using a walker was confronted by the group currently outside East Precinct and paint was strewn all over her. pic.twitter.com/k1cCVMbNht
— Portland Police (@PortlandPolice) August 7, 2020
I referred to the unknown woman as the wall of grandma because despite being alone and being harassed, she stood up to the entire crowd.
Wall of grandma… https://t.co/tGsdxRYHHG
— John Sexton (@verumserum) August 8, 2020
KGW 8 tracked down both women, who live in the neighborhood near the police precinct that was being vandalized. Penny is 73-years-old and was the woman who put out a fire set in a trash can. “Wednesday night they broke windows and it was a real mess,” she told KGW. She added, “I’m very, very pro Black Lives Matter but I just think that the vandalism sabotages the message.”
After Penny put out the fire, someone came up and stole her fire extinguisher while another protester used a paint can to try to smash the plywood outside the precinct. Then the protesters lit the fire again.
The other woman who stood up to the mob was 77-year-old Coby. She’s the one who got doused with paint. “I just got heated under the collar and I went up and said ‘Hey, this is not okay,'” she said. She told the crowd, “You’re not helping my black friends.”
Another local channel caught up with a man named Jay who was part of the protest but appeared disturbed by what he saw. He walked over to one of the two women after she was hit with paint and offered to walk her home to ensure her safety. He told KOIN 6 “Everybody has a right to their opinion. That’s great but, you know, you start destroying things and burning things, you shouldn’t cry about getting tear-gassed.”
Here’s the KGW interview with Penny and Coby. Neither woman plans to press charges but both are now being hailed as heroes by people in their neighborhood.
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