USA TODAY International Edition
Police in Portland declare protest a riot after fires set
Demonstrations have engulfed city for weeks
Portland, Oregon, police declared a gathering Saturday night a riot after hundreds of demonstrators who have been protesting in the city since the death of George Floyd broke into a building and set it ablaze and started dumpster fires.
The protesters broke into the Portland Police Association at around 10: 45 p. m. Saturday, police said, and “ignited a fire inside.” That prompted police to declare the event a riot “due to the violent conduct of the large group creating a grave risk of public alarm.” The fire inside the Portland Police Association building was put out a short time later.
“As the crowd was dispersed, several people in the crowd were arrested and officers were able to extinguish the fire,” Portland Police said Sunday in a statement. “Portland Police did not use any CS gas,” a commonly used term for tear gas.
However, several reporters and bystanders shared photos and videos on social media that they said show police using tear gas to help clear the area.
Earlier Saturday night, a different group of demonstrators gathered by the Portland Police Bureau’s North Precinct and “taunted officers ... tampered with gates, broke patrol vehicle windows, and vandalized patrol vehicles,” police said.
After protesters regrouped later at an intersection in North Portland, police said they tried to move the crowd south, when some “threw rocks, gopher gassers, and launched paint filled balloons at officers.” Police said some officers were injured but did not provide specific details.
In a message posted to his Twitter account Sunday morning, President Donald Trump blamed local officials for the unrest.
“We are trying to help Portland, not hurt it,” Trump tweeted. “Their leadership has, for months, lost control of the anarchists and agitators. They are missing in action. We must protect Federal property, AND OUR PEOPLE. These were not merely protesters, these are the real deal!”
Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf blasted the protesters as “lawless anarchists” in a visit to the city on Thursday.
The Trump administration has enlisted the U. S. Marshals Special Operations Group and an elite U. S. Customs and Border Protection team based on the U. S.- Mexico border to protect federal property.
In response to the federal intervention, Democratic chairs of three House committees penned a joint letter that calls for the inspectors general for the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security to open an investigation on the use of force.
In the letter, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, and Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney said the Trump administration appears to have “increasingly abused emergency authorities to justify the use of force against Americans exercising their right to peaceful assembly.”
The federal presence has been a point of tension for Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and other local officials, who have bristled at the deployment of federal troops. Wheeler decried a small group of violent protesters for drowning out the message of peaceful protesters and said that the federal presence has aggravated an alreadydelicate climate in the city.
“Keep your troops in your own buildings, or have them leave our city,” Wheeler said Friday.
On Friday, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum sued Homeland Security and the Marshals Service in federal court. The complaint claims that unidentified federal agents have taken people into custody “without warning or explanation, without a warrant, and without providing any way to determine who is directing this action.”
“Keep your troops in your own buildings, or have them leave our city.”
Ted Wheeler Portland mayor