Portland police on Tuesday declared an unlawful assembly and arrested at least two people amid a demonstration held after jurors convicted former Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd.
Floyd’s death in May ignited nearly a year of protests, rioting and political unrest in Portland, and it thrust the issues of police violence and systemic racism into the middle of a tense national conversation.
A crowd initially gathered near the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse and Multnomah County Justice Center on Tuesday evening, and some began spray-painting the latter building about 9 p.m.
A group of roughly 60 began marching about 9:45 p.m., while about 25 other people remained near the courthouse and Justice Center.
Some demonstrators broke a number of downtown windows, according to police, who declared an unlawful assembly at roughly 10 p.m.
Portland police declare unlawful assembly for second consecutive night. https://t.co/BaSqk7BaAO pic.twitter.com/OdZxIpJ2fK
— Fox12Oregon (@fox12oregon) April 21, 2021
#Antifa smashed up another Starbucks in their Portland riot celebrating Chauvin’s murder conviction. Video by @jennytyoung: pic.twitter.com/xUEGfcoXvz
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) April 21, 2021
About that time, an officer and protester engaged in a heated confrontation. Another officer arrived on a bicycle, pushing a different nearby protester. That protester then punched the first officer, and police piled on the person who threw the punch in flurry of physical confrontation captured on video by an Oregonian/OregonLive journalist.
A different video of the flurry shows an officer throwing repeated punches.
Police said officers arrested two people during the protest and that they used pepper spray against one of them.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT AND LANGUAGE
Despite the Chauvin murder conviction, #antifa carried through with their promise of violence in Portland. They smashed up businesses yet again in downtown. In this shocking video, a rioter punches a responding officer directly in the face. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/mA6Cnb2NsE
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) April 21, 2021
Randy Gray, 36, was charged with assaulting a peace officer, harassment, disorderly conduct and criminal mischief for the altercation with police. Kenneth Harold, 24, was arrested on charges of criminal mischief, police said, and was in possession of a glass-breaking tool and cans of spray paint when he was taken into custody.
The events came after Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler declared a 24-hour state of emergency earlier Tuesday, allowing him to impose a curfew, close city streets and take other extraordinary measures should widespread political unrest erupt.
The mayor also said the city would have the state police and National Guard on standby, while Portland police received assistance from the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office and other law enforcement agencies in the metro area.
Well before the march, Lisa Dooney, 69, was among those who gathered near the Justice Center and federal courthouse.
Dooney — who has been protesting since the late 1960s, when she first attended a Portland protest against the Vietnam War — said she came by for a little while to “pay homage to what happened today.”
Still, she said, far more must be done.
”True justice would be George Floyd still living,” she said.
Remington Smith, 27, said the verdict was justified and hopes pressure will shift to demanding reparations and justice for other people killed by police, including Breonna Taylor.
”I would like to be able to see that happen,” Smith said.
— Fedor Zarkhin
©2021 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
This is the end result of having a Weak Spineless Republican Party.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ― Edmund Burke
also the enableing left wing idiot politicians in these cesspool cities and now even the usurper president and his whole party from hell.
MANY OF US called it “REGARDLESS of the jury’s decision, they would riot..
ITS a shame we keep being proven right.
That being right thing kinda bites, doesn’t it? I really enjoy being wrong as it means the human race is better, at least in that instance, than it’s usually proven to be over my 75 years of observation.
IT does suck, that this is what ‘we’ve become’.. ALL NO thanks to the flat out infiltration of our nation..
The west coast and the northeast coast is full of communist airheads who hate our Country. How is that for “systemic racism”.
AND In most of them, they’ve been that way for 50+ years! ERGO If you wanna blame someone for systemic racism, BLAME YOURSELVES for keeping these cretins in office!
Hey Starbucks. How are those gun free zones working out for you? Now you need to rock and brick free zones in place.
”True justice would be George Floyd still living,” she said.
George Floyd would be still living if he had not chosen to be a career criminal whilst simultaneously ingesting fentanyl and meth amphetamines.
Let’s see now. Police can’t use tear gas, other non-lethal means to break up a riot or protect themselves. As I see it, that just leaves a couple of choices. Cops go home and spend time with their families and let the riots burn themselves out. OR put some live ammunition in their guns to actually protect themselves. I don’t imagine the riots will last long after that.
In Germany after WWII, looters were shot on sight. Looting didn’t last long
SINCE they would get charged and jailed, if they DID use live ammo, in these commucrat ran cities, that to ME< just leaves one choice.. STAY THE HELL HOME!
OR better yet, QUIT AND MOVE to a saner city!
If I am a cop, and come upon black on black crime, I let them kill each other off, then use my taser to arrest who ever is left.
OR just get back in the car, and drive the hell away!
Hooah! Thank you for your proactive and correct service. Need some examples out there. Stay safe.
Whoops, missed the introductory conditional, “If”. Kudos for the thought in any event.
These scum, BLM, ANTIFA, etc will never be satisfied until they have destroyed the country. Unfortunately, it will require the citizenry to rise up and deal with the problems in those states and communities where the elected authority won’t do what is necessary. It is truly sad that our country has come to this.
ITS Not just the blm/antifa scum, we need to rise up against and eliminate. ITS ALSO THEIR handlers, their masters, their funders, and their APOLOGISTS…
Just goes to prove the riots are not, nor were they ever, about ‘justice for Floyd’. They are about anarchy, chaos, and mayhem. The should have been stopped as soon as they started months ago. Now it is too little too late.
Their team loses, they, riot, Burn, Loot and Murder; their team wins, they riot, Burn, Loot and Murder. Call in an airstrike, send in a Cobra, televise it. No more riot, Burn, Loot and Murder. End of story.
Which to me, shows they have NO DESIRE TO ever be civil.. THEY JUST want to be destructive..
“Dooney — who has been protesting since the late 1960s, when she first attended a Portland protest against the Vietnam War — said she came by for a little while to ‘pay homage to what happened today.'”
Definition of the difference between ignorance and stupidity; ignorance can be cured with information while stupidity is terminal.
When you were protesting and I was in Viet Nam, we protested clowns like you, but this but this isn’t an appropriate venue to post the details. See my previous post on “airstrike” and “Cobra”.
There need not be any rational connection between an event and a resulting riot.
“It’s my birthday so let’s have a riot.”
“A dog ran across the street so let’s have a riot.”
“It’s a sunny day so let’s have a riot.”
More and more i am thinking, ANY COP, that see’s a black perp, either about to SHOOT, or stab other ‘people of color’, should just DRIVE THE HELL AWAY, and let them have it.