A day of protest in Portland as Proud Boys converge on city
PORTLAND, Ore. — Hundreds of law enforcement agents swept across Portland on Saturday, making targeted arrests, shutting down intersections and seizing weapons in a largely successful effort to keep opposing political rallies across the city from erupting into violent conflict.
A rally organized by the Proud Boys — a far-right group notorious for engaging in brawls — had led Gov. Kate Brown to declare a state of emergency before the events, which also included rallies organized by local protest groups whose members had announced that the outside group was not welcome.
At the Proud Boys gathering, where some people wore tactical gear and carried weapons, there was some brief conflict when a handful of outsiders arrived and were quickly surrounded by a crowd. Video posted by a local journalist showed a man kicking someone who had been knocked to the ground. Police said they were investigating the assault.
About half a mile away, on the other side of Interstate 5, about 200 people gathered peacefully with Black Lives Matter flags and made presentations about the history of that corner of the city, where many Black families first established roots during World War II.
Dre Miller, an activist with one of the organizing groups, said the groups had been approached by city officials asking them not to go forward because of the possibility of conflict. But he said the group took precautions, including setting up a car caravan to minimize chances of conflict as ralliers departed. And by sticking to their goals of highlighting the history of racism in the neighborhood where the Proud Boys had scheduled their rally, he said, the gathering was one of the most peaceful he had been to in recent weeks.
“Our Black organizers are going to stick together and stick to the message,” he told the crowd.
The Proud Boys chairman, Enrique Tarrio, said he was grateful that the police presence — estimated by the Oregon State Police at 500 officers — had kept the groups apart.
“We got all of our speakers on stage, we got to say what we wanted to say, we did what we wanted to do, and now we’re out of town,” Tarrio said Saturday afternoon.
Political and law enforcement officials had expressed fears that Saturday’s competing events could become violent.
Downtown Portland has been rocked by protests this summer, first over the police killings of Black people, and later over the Trump administration’s move to send federal agents to the city in an attempt to quell the demonstrations.
The Proud Boys had billed their gathering in Portland as an opportunity to counter the city’s long-running racial justice protests, with Tarrio posting online that “antifa is in for a bad time” if law enforcement was not present.
Several hundred people gathered at Delta Park on the city’s north edge, mingling, drinking and shouting. Some in the crowd broke into expletive-filled chants against antifa, the loose group of activists who sometimes use violence to stop people from promoting views they deem fascist or racist.
In addition to the assault reported by the police, there were several other confrontations when people suspected by members of the crowd of being antifa activists walked into the area.
A few Portland police officers, who had largely stayed away from the center of the event, briefly entered the park and tried to defuse the skirmishes. A helicopter circled overhead as the proceedings began with the national anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance, and a host of speakers began condemning the racial justice protesters who have gone nightly into Portland’s streets, as well as the city’s leaders.
The Proud Boys group has strongly criticized Mayor Ted Wheeler of Portland for not taking a stronger line against the protesters who clashed with agents outside of a federal courthouse downtown in nightly confrontations over several weeks. The Proud Boys welcomed Brown’s emergency order, which also allowed state and local police to use tear gas, which the mayor had banned city police officers from using.
As the Proud Boys rally came to an end in Portland, police directed traffic out of the park, funneling motorists directly onto a freeway that would take them over the Columbia River — out of the city and out of the state.