Another riot was declared in Portland last night. I think that makes four this week. Last night the focus was the north precinct and Antifa vandalized a police car. While they were there they also vandalized a van for the Boys & Girls Club which is not part of the police bureau.
A crowd of 150-200 people gathered at Irving Park at 707 Northeast Fremont Street and began marching around 9:30p.m., blocking traffic. In the march, many individuals wore protective gear including helmets, eye protection, gas masks, and body armor. Some carried homemade wooden shields.
Officers placed unoccupied police vehicles parked on Northeast Emerson Street on the southwest side of the precinct and yellow police line tape across the road. That was done with the intention of keeping the crowd away from the building. In past protests there have been attempts to commit arson and burn the occupied building. A police loudspeaker provided warnings to the crowd not to enter city property and on the closed area of Northeast Emerson Street.
Almost immediately the officers were targeted by thrown bottles, eggs, and green lasers toward their eyes. The lasers are powerful enough that they’re capable of causing serious, permanent eye damage. The police sound truck issued further warnings, notifying the crowd that officers have observed people in the area of North Precinct throwing projectiles and pointing lasers at officers…
Over the next three hours, individuals in the crowd pelted the police vehicles with softball-sized rocks, glass bottles, golf balls, ball bearings, metal railroad spikes (photo), and plastic eggs filled with paint (photo). There were also balloons filled with feces thrown on the cars and even a torn up street sign was used to vandalize the marked police cars (photo). Windows were broken and tires were deflated (photo).
So long as the mob was remaining off police property, the officers stayed back and let them vandalize the vehicles which were empty. But eventually the crowd closed in and the police responded and then pulled back again:
At least two officers were struck with rocks despite their safety buffer. A ball bearing struck the loudspeaker truck almost a full block away. A van parked in front of the neighboring Boys and Girls Club had a window broken by what is believed to be a golf ball (photos).
Numerous people with “press” markings encroached on the closed area. One person with “press” written on their garments deflated another police vehicle tire (photo)…
At 1:10a.m., a riot was declared. More warnings were given. Officers moved the crowd to the south. One vehicle tried to run over some officers, but was unsuccessful in injuring them. An officer was injured when she was struck by a rock that had been thrown. Green lasers targeted the PPB Air Unit.
Of course there’s video. Let’s dive right in with naked person:
A protester just got completely naked except for a mask and is just sort of … chilling. pic.twitter.com/GdpZrHHalr
— Tuck Woodstock (@tuckwoodstock) August 22, 2020
LRAD now giving long-winded instructions about where protesters can stand, and calling out specific protesters who aren’t complying (including, I believe, the protester who was shot in the forehead by a less-lethal munition earlier)
— Tuck Woodstock (@tuckwoodstock) August 22, 2020
Police issue a warning not to vandalize police cars:
Police LRAD warning about not vandalizing the vehicles pic.twitter.com/Gsbr7DWx3M
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) August 22, 2020
This appears to be the first arrest of the night. As always, the mob is reinforcing its commitment to not turn anyone in for criminal behavior:
“What did you see/I didn’t see shit” pic.twitter.com/xJ1mdXZA9D
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) August 22, 2020
As mentioned above, they broke windows on a van belonging to the Boys&Girls Club because they’re idiots. Sergio Olmos has video of a vandalized cop car but no video of it being vandalized.
The police car windows smashed out pic.twitter.com/gpxSiZ4z5p
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) August 22, 2020
At least one reporter did catch some of the vandalism happening. There were at least a dozen journalists there but none of the others caught it:
Just before unlawful assembly declared pic.twitter.com/XC22FC2JAc
— Molly Harbarger (@MollyHarbarger) August 22, 2020
As the rioters enter the area with shields, police finally push back:
Police walk towards protestors to begin dispersment pic.twitter.com/MQa7hHt2vQ
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) August 22, 2020
Officers are pushing people wearing press badges, but as mentioned above some of the “press” are slashing tires when they think no one is looking:
Police make an arrest, officer physically push press back pic.twitter.com/SoinBdQdfZ
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) August 22, 2020
Police have been wasting their time (and the city’s money) with these idiots every night for months. They’ve vandalized city property and injured officers and they are forming shield walls to resist orders to disperse. And yet, the moment someone gets pushed they are outraged.
Police push protesters getting off the ground, other protestors try to help the fallen, police push them too pic.twitter.com/0p5IG5fBnm
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) August 22, 2020
Another angle on the Antifa shield wall:
LAST NIGHT: After rioters vandalized and began to light street fires, Antifa attempted to mobilize and form a shield line against police, watch as Portland PD make a complete mockery out of the Antifa shield line
— Drew Hernandez (@DrewHLive) August 22, 2020
Police published images of some of the damage and the items thrown at them last night including ballons full of poop.
Not sure whose job it was to make these…. 💩🎈
Just when we thought we had seen it all in over 80 days. pic.twitter.com/9TxqT1tjlk— Portland Police (@PortlandPolice) August 22, 2020
— Portland Police (@PortlandPolice) August 22, 2020
And I think that’s about it for last night. There’s some kind of confrontation happening in Portland today but I’ll leave that for another post.
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