The “Day of Rage” protests in Portland over the weekend included vandalism and even gunshots directed at several businesses. The Portland Indian Leaders Roundtable released a statement Monday morning denouncing “pointless acts of vandalism.” Portland business owners are also telling KOIN 6 this week that they think it’s time for the protests to end:

The consensus among business owners and residents KOIN 6 spoke with Tuesday was clear: the nightly protests in downtown Portland have been hijacked by criminals and that the violence and destruction has exhausted the community.

Most of the people we spoke with still support the Black Lives Matter message but said the attacks on the city only harm progress made by the racial justice movement…

The owner of a nearby deli, John Jackson, said bullets shattered his store’s windows. Jackson gave KOIN 6 a tour of the damage, comparing it to the horrors he saw while serving for the military in Operation Desert Storm.

Two weeks ago KOIN 6 reported that of the 718 businesses that make up 213 blocks downtown, 20 were permanently closed and 170 were temporarily closed. That left 430 or about 60 percent that remained open in some fashion, though some of those were by appointment only. The pandemic and associated restrictions are responsible for most of that, but having a mob of people destroy and loot businesses obviously doesn’t help.

In addition to the nightly riots, violent crime is also up sharply since the police budget was cut. That’s another factor that could wind up depressing business in the long run.

I don’t see much hope anything is going to change in Portland. Hundreds of violent ideologues are determined to use the city as a backdrop for their anti-police propaganda. So long as there are police trying to prevent the destruction, there will be rioters looking to instigate the next lawsuit or the next viral video.

The rioters know this is hurting the city but given that most of them are anarchists or outright Marxists, they don’t care if the local capitalists pay the price for their behavior. Harming private enterprise is a feature for them, not a bug.

The only way this is going to stop is if the Mayor and the DA work to put these people in jail but after four months of this they obviously aren’t ready to do that. And if Sarah Iannarone wins the coming election, there’s every reason to think things will get worse as Antifa will know they have an ally who will continue to shield them from consequences in the mayor’s office.

Here’s the KOIN 6 report.