Wednesday night Mayor Wheeler made a speech saying “enough is enough” with the violence. He went about as far as he’s ever going to go toward condemning Antifa and their nightly riots in the city. Early Friday afternoon, the mayor published a letter he’d sent to President Trump saying he would not be accepting any help from the feds to deal with the situation.

Today, I sent this letter via email to @realDonaldTrump declining his recurring offer to aid Portland by sending federal enforcement to the city. https://t.co/W85EDfriyk pic.twitter.com/CC1IWTp5k8

— Mayor Ted Wheeler (@tedwheeler) August 28, 2020

Friday evening was apparently payback time for the condemnation of the riots he’d made earlier in the week. A group of about 200 people showed up at the mayor’s high rise condo and made demands.

The evening started with a bloc party featuring live music and speeches about defunding and abolishing police departments near NW Park and West Burnside. About 200 people then set out on a march just after 6 p.m., stopping at NW Glisan and 10th near Wheeler’s presumed residence.

During the next few hours, at least three people locked themselves inside the complex in the hopes of expressing several demands, including defunding Portland police.

It’s not clear who organized this. Portland DSA said it was a “coalition of groups” but they were definitely part of it:

They have now locked themselves together. Here are the demands. pic.twitter.com/ylytE8Uy3J

— Portland DSA (@PortlandDSA) August 29, 2020

That list of demands pictured above says the group wants “a complete abolition of the Portland Police Bureau by 2022.” It’s signed “The People of Portland” which is, of course, a lie. I doubt this prospect gets majority support even in Portland.

Protesters on the outside have prepared a bouquet made of spent crowd control munitions to deliver to @tedwheeler when he arrives pic.twitter.com/ON8yrxKUaS

— Portland DSA (@PortlandDSA) August 29, 2020

Building security called police and then…nothing. Well, they sent this guy:

Likely undercover cop has entered the lobby. But no @tedwheeler pic.twitter.com/hdyqXqtuQ4

— Portland DSA (@PortlandDSA) August 29, 2020

Maybe that was strategic to not rile up the protesters or maybe the police just don’t care what happens to Mayor Wheeler. I’m hoping it was the latter. An NBA executive claiming to be a friend of the Mayor came down and offered to set up a meeting and the protesters mocked him.

ok buckle up…. former Minnesota Timberwolves executive David Kahn has come down to talk to the protesters…. claims to be a friend of Ted. pic.twitter.com/J6kyW6Q5GK

— Portland DSA (@PortlandDSA) August 29, 2020

There was some vandalism of the property:

Red paint handprints on the window, still three people attached together inside. #blacklivesmatter  #protest #pdx #Portland #Oregon #BLM #PortlandProtest #pdxprotest pic.twitter.com/rHkhnFtmu0

— Garrison Davis (@hungrybowtie) August 29, 2020

While they waited outside the group had a concert/dancy party:

Right now outside Mayor Ted Wheeler’s apartment building there’s an activist dance party going on with Childish Gambino booming out the speakers #BlackLivesMatter #PortlandProtests #pdxprotest pic.twitter.com/qj1VTRwMso

— Jules Boykoff (@JulesBoykoff) August 29, 2020

They also shined lights in the windows:

“Search lights” patrolling Mayor Ted Wheeler’s apartment building in downtown Portland #BlackLivesMatter #PortlandProtests #pdxprotest pic.twitter.com/b0OH7rn0tw

— Jules Boykoff (@JulesBoykoff) August 29, 2020

Mayor Wheeler never did come down to talk to them and that may be because he wasn’t there in the first place. After a few hours the group in the lobby gave up and went home because of…security concerns? Maybe that had to do with news crews showing up:

Activists are using this banner to block the local TV crews from filming. They told me that they were fed up with TV stations airing the full names & photos of arrested activists #BlackLivesMatter #PortlandProtests #pdxprotest pic.twitter.com/4BhRrab7Rv

— Jules Boykoff (@JulesBoykoff) August 29, 2020

Some of the people in the lobby of Ted Wheeler’s apartment left for safety reasons.

— Garrison Davis (@hungrybowtie) August 29, 2020

Bottom line: They don’t like being identified.

One of the people who chained herself inside @tedwheeler’s condo lobby is Olivia Morgan. She was arrested just two days ago at an #antifa riot, charged with felony rioting, attempting escape, resisting arrest & more. She was quickly released & now she’s at Wheeler’s home. pic.twitter.com/ILlIhcuFBz

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) August 29, 2020

All of the action at Wheeler’s condo wrapped up by around 11 pm and then there was a march to the Portland Police Association building. This is not a police building but the home of the police union. Rioters have attempted to set this building on fire so many times I’ve lost count. Last night they tried again and partly succeeded. They started by blocking off the street with flaming dumpsters:

After occupying area outside @tedwheeler’s condo, #antifa have returned to rioting. They have shut down the street in north Portland and started fires on the street again. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/bm367ufiOc

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) August 29, 2020

Then they put a lit palette in front of the building and sprayed it with accelerant:

PPA on Fire pic.twitter.com/MoaVn0F6Tx

— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) August 29, 2020

Gee, I wonder why he didn’t turn the camera on the face of the person committing this arson? Like everyone else in the crowd he “didn’t see s**t.” There was a photographer from the Oregonian there too. She posted some photos from the fire and, guess what, she somehow missed the arsonist’s face too:

A mattress was lit against the PPA bldg, accelerant was used. Police quickly declared a riot, several arrests made pic.twitter.com/Je3Dqg7TEO

— Beth Nakamura (@bethnakamura) August 29, 2020

In that bottom picture you can just see the arms of the person spraying lighter fluid on the building but that’s it. A lot of the reporting in Portland is very selective like this. Anyway, police came out to put out the fire:

After #antifa started multiple fires on the street & set the police union building on fire again tonight, Portland Police declared a riot & moved in. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/z9iPU5ejKu

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) August 29, 2020

They made several arrests:

Portland police arrest a man who was about to escape on a motorcycle at the #antifa riot in north Portland. #PortlandRiots #antifa pic.twitter.com/8Q9nfbPXUp

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) August 29, 2020

Police are well aware that the DA is not going to prosecute most people who get arrested. You would think that maybe after Mayor Wheeler’s “enough is enough” speech this week that maybe he’d be attempting to do something about that. Wheeler has apparently had a discussion about it with the Portland Police Chief:

On Friday, the mayor’s spokesman, Tim Becker, summarized the Wednesday meeting, citing accounts from Lovell that police need help and more support.

Becker said the mayor and chief talked about police needing more support from elected officials.

He said they also denounced the criminal activity and talked about further prosecution for those engaged in criminal behavior.

We’ll have to wait and see if that goes anywhere or if the police chief in Portland will end up resigning like Chief Best did in Seattle.

Finally, I can’t close this out without noting that NPR published a story Thursday arguing that the declaration of a riot in Portland is essentially racist:

Between May 29 and Aug. 27, the Portland Police Bureau declared 23 riots and 22 unlawful assemblies (that doesn’t include nights that started as unlawful assemblies and were later declared riots). But the laws governing those declarations are vague and have roots in Oregon’s deeply racist past…

“A lot of the riot and crowd control philosophy and statute was developed around the ’60s and ’70s when protests around some of the very same things … rights for Black people. … were taking place in the state and particularly in Portland,” Bynum said.

On some nights, police have declared unlawful assemblies within minutes of protesters arriving.

This is a garbage article. It doesn’t really deal specifically with any of the riots that have been declared. Instead it just vaguely suggests there’s no rhyme or reason to it. For instance, I wrote about one recent instance when a riot was declared almost immediately. Why? Because a large mob of 300 people marched to the Portland PPA building chanting “burn it down” and immediately tried to set the building on fire in two places at once. How is it racist to declare a riot and prevent (almost uniformly white) people from burning down a building? NPR doesn’t have an answer for that so it just keeps everything vague. Again, what utter garbage.