By Grand Rapids Anonymous
Saturday, August 4, 2018 at 12:39:00 P.M. EDT
Portland Update
DOUG STANGLIN | USA TODAY
Updated 1 hour ago
Portland was bracing for possible clashes Saturday as the right-wing group Patriot Prayer planned a downtown "freedom march" and counter-protesters vowed to challenge them for the third time in two months.
The event also comes ahead of the one-year anniversary of the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last August that deteriorated into clashes between protesters and counter-protesters that left one person dead.
The Portland Police Bureau said Friday that demonstrators should expect to see a significant police presence including bomb-sniffing dogs and checkpoints where weapon screenings will occur.
"I continue to strongly reject the idea that violence or hate speech are legitimate means to a political end," Mayor Ted Wheeler said, adding that he and the Portland police chief "have serious concerns about the potential for violence" at the events.
The march, planned for months, has been organized by Joey Gibson, leader of the Patriot Prayer group, and a long-shot Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in the state of Washington.
It comes five weeks after clashes between left and right on June 30 in which both sides, including masked anti-fascist groups, battled in downtown Portland, pummeling and striking each other. Police declared the event a riot and revoked rally permits.
A similar Patriot Prayer event on June 4 devolved into fistfights and assaults by both sides [sic] as police struggled to keep the groups apart.
[N.S.: I now use “sic” in a running text to indicate that the writer was lying, as well as for typos, etc.]
GRA Update
Saturday, August 4, 2018 at 7:41:00 P.M. EDT
Portland Police End Protests
Manuel Valdes and Gillian Flaccus
Associated Press
Small scuffles broke out Saturday as police in Portland, Oregon, deployed "flash bang" devices and other means to disperse hundreds of right-wing and self-described anti-fascist protesters.
[The patriots hadn’t rioted.]
Just before 2 p.m., police in riot gear ordered people to leave an area downtown, saying demonstrators [communist/anarchist rioters] had thrown rocks and bottles at officers.
"Get out of the street," police announced via loudspeaker.
There were arrests and some injuries, but it wasn't immediately clear how many. A reporter for The Oregonian/OregonLive was bloodied when he was struck by a projectile. Eder Campuzano said later on Twitter he was "okay."
Demonstrators aligned with Patriot Prayer and an affiliated group, the Proud Boys, gathered around mid-day in a riverfront park.
Hundreds of demonstrators [sic] faced them from across the street, holding banners and signs with opposition messages such as "Alt right scum not welcome in Portland." Some chanted "Nazis go home."
Officers stood in the middle of the four-lane boulevard, essentially forming a wall to keep the two sides separated.
The counter-protesters were made up of a coalition of labor unions, immigrant [sic] rights advocates, democratic socialists and other groups. They included people dressed as clowns and a brass band blaring music.
jerry pdx
ReplyDeleteI thought about going downtown and doing some "on the spot reporting" but these Antifa clowns are just a bunch of posers each with their own personal ideological axe to grind, mostly centering around pop issues shoved in their faces by the media, you know, fake hate crimes, babies ripped from immigrants arms, BLM etc. If they really put their money where their mouths were, they'd mix it up with the police not Patriot Prayer, a group doing little but practicing their right to free speech. But they are cowardly hypocrites acting as pawns of the very powers they claim to be fighting against.