Suspects detained in Portland shooting
PORTLAND, Ore. – Violence continued Sunday night near a contested federal courthouse, with local police temporarily detaining two people after a gunshot, and federal agents tackling and detaining at least six protesters before seizing weapons and shields from their encampment.
“Get off me, get off me!” a woman screamed as at least three federal agents swarmed over her, shoving her to the street and holding her down. Several of her fellow protesters tried to push the agents off, but were warned back by a camouflaged agent with a rifle.
A handful of other protesters were tackled, restrained and either frogmarched into the courthouse or loaded into marked police vehicles. Federal agents then searched the encampment that’s sprung up in a city park across the street, looking through tents and containers before removing shields, gas masks and other protest supplies, including several sticks, chemical sprayers and an empty gas can.
It was unclear what precipitated the arrests around 1:20 a.m., but they came during an evening of tension heightened by a reported shooting around 7:30 p.m. in the protest encampment. Police briefly detained two people in connection with that incident, and later released pictures of loaded rifle magazines and two Molotov cocktails they found nearby. It remained unclear early Monday if the shooting was connected to the protest, and police said the magazines and firebomb “appear to be unrelated” to the shooting.
All last week the area was the scene of violent confrontations between activists and federal officers. Over the weekend, the Department of Homeland Security dispatched additional officers to the city to bolster the ranks of an existing force of about 114, an official said Monday. The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly, declined to provide the actual number of additional officers or their specific affiliation, but the group is at least several dozen. The new deployment was necessary, the official said, because the conflict has not abated.
Videos posted to Twitter showed angry crowds confronting police investigating the shooting. Portland police have largely ceded the area to protesters for the past week but arrived quickly following the reported shooting.
“As police were securing the scene a person arrived at a hospital by private vehicle with an apparent gunshot wound, non-life threatening. That person seems to have been associated with the incident,” police officials said in a statement.
Thousands of protesters have flocked to the streets surrounding the federal courthouse each night for nearly two months since the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day in Minneapolis, and while federal agents have been subjected to barrages of fireworks, bottles and flaming garbage, violence between protesters has been limited.
Activists aligned with the Black Lives Matter social justice movement have said they are worried the focus on federal law enforcement and the courthouse risks diluting their efforts to overhaul the Portland police department. Protests have taken place every day since Floyd’s death, but exploded in size last week after President Donald Trump ordered a heightened federal presence to protect federal buildings and restore order.