Robert Evans has worked as a conflict reporter in Iraq and Ukraine, and has extensively reported on extreme right-wing extremist organizations in the United States. He is particularly interested in the ways in which terrorist organizations recruit, radicalize, and communicate via the Internet.
After federal agents drove rented trucks and video evidence of kidnapping activists went viral, Portland, Oregon is now the focus of national attention. This video was shot in the early hours of July 15th, and an article published by the Oregon Public Broadcasting Corporation on the 16th took the matter from the local social network of Portland activists to the national stage.
As I was writing this article, mainstream media figures began to parachute into Portland, reporting what some people called "fascist takeover of Portland." The term "Gestapo" is very popular on Twitter.
The kidnapping taken on the 15th did not happen in a vacuum. As other local reporters have pointed out, this is the final result of the escalation of violence in the country that has targeted mainly non-violent demonstrators for more than six weeks. Since the first riot, I have been documenting the movement on the streets of Portland. Before the national media releases a lot of new stories based on their first few hours in town, I want to explain what is happening:
State and federal law enforcement agencies are at war with the people of Portland.
Depending on who you’re asking, Portland’s fifty-plus night protests either began on May 27, when a group organized by several indigenous activists and other activists of color occupied the Justice Center’s The steps, either began on May 29, the night of the first major protests in Portland. Mass protests after the death of George Floyd. The party kicked off with a large-scale peaceful rally in North Portland Peninsula Park. Thousands of citizens gathered there and marched 4.1 miles to meet the protesters occupying the steps of the judicial center.
The Multnomah County Justice Center includes the headquarters of the Portland Police Department and the city jail. The Liberation Front, which claimed to be "a group of barbaric teenagers", had occupied the steps of the judicial center for less than three days. The police conducted a raid on them on the evening of the 28th, but in the days before the 29th, most of the police presence was minimal.
When thousands of citizens marched from Peninsula Park, hundreds gathered in the judicial center. Can't see the police. Once, a black man sitting on a tricycle rolled up and started playing Sam Cooke's "It's been a long, long timecoming". A dance party followed:
Portland is in a very good mood now pic.twitter.com/KSWtYgzmMB
-Robert Evans (the only Robert Evans) (@IwriteOK) May 30, 2020
At 10:35 pm local time, the crowd from the Justice Center marched onto the streets of downtown Portland. A few minutes later, they met with the crowd from Peninsula Park. Together, the two groups marched towards the Judicial Center and surrounded it.
#portlandprotest pic.twitter.com/ELK6kbwAqa
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos), May 30, 2020
Before 11 o'clock in the evening, dozens of protesters began to smash the windows of the justice center. They entered the building, destroyed the interior and set fire to it at will. I watched this happen from a few feet away, and I thought the destruction was unplanned, but more or less inevitable-you can feel it in the mood of the crowd. The third district of Minneapolis has just been burned down: It is absolutely impossible for Portland not to try to do the same thing.
Of course, the Portland Police Department (PPB) will be here soon. At a more gentleman moment throughout the uprising, they issued warnings to those with their families and dogs, urging them to leave. Quite a few moderate demonstrators went home. More than a thousand protesters stood up and started yelling at the police. Shortly after midnight, the PPB fired into the crowd, which would eventually become the first of hundreds of tear gas bombs.
The crowd dispersed, being pushed in several different directions by the police at the same time. They are divided into several groups. A man rammed through a series of banks in the city center, smashed windows and started a fire as they fled the police. Another larger group of demonstrators stormed into the luxury shopping area, ransacked the Apple Store, Louis Vuitton, H&M, and finally ransacked Target. The rest of the night is a mess of gas, flashes and burning roadblocks.
Portland police stated that there have been more than a dozen riots in the past 50 days, but May 29 was still the only night that truly felt that the real people of the city were in riots.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler went out of town on a day known as "Riot Night." At 11:49 in the evening, less than an hour after the riots, he posted this angry tweet:
I have to leave Portland today because my mother is dying. Together with my family, I prepare for her last moments. It's hard, it's personal, but so is watching my city be destroyed.
I am coming back now. You will receive a letter from my @PortlandPolice community leader.
— Mayor Ted Wheeler (@tedwheeler), May 30, 2020
Wheeler declared a state of emergency early the next morning and imposed a curfew on the entire city at 8 pm. The next day, Saturday, more than a thousand protesters gathered in front of the Justice Center. Starting around 6:00 pm, they occupied the 3rd and Main intersection between the Judicial Center and the Federal Court. The police mostly hid behind the justice center until after 6:50, four militants sat down in the middle of the second and main intersection.
The police quickly drove the demonstrators out of the crossroads, and then occupied it themselves, ensuring that it was still closed to traffic as it was when the protesters occupied it. Crowds of protesters began to confront the police and lie down in front of their riot line:
This situation quickly became violent. The police began to pull people up from the ground, then pushed forward into the crowd behind them, slamming them with their batons, until about 6:58 p.m., an hour before the curfew, when the police began beating people. The crowd retreated first, but finally stood up, waving protest signs on the faces of the police. The police waved to the crowd several times, knocked them back, and finally rushed into the crowd unscrupulously and even attacked people on the ground. Once, an officer threw his baton into the crowd and slammed a demonstrator with a gloved fist.
After this, the Portland police ordered the crowd to step back from the road and enter the park. Then, they began to fire tear gas to cover the park, and randomly spray dozens of motorists who were unfortunately anywhere within a few blocks of the city center.
The demonstrations continued for several hours again. The crowd was eventually chased to the beach and torn apart by the curtain of tear gas. Thousands of Portlanders watched the violence of the day in a live broadcast by various reporters, and came out to express their dissatisfaction on the next day, Sunday, May 31. A large-scale demonstration between 7-10,000 people was held in Laurelhurst Park.
When the crowd began to march, they all violated the curfew. But there were too many people to be arrested, and the police kept their distance almost throughout the procession. When the crowd began to cross Burnside Bridge into the city center and toward the Justice Center, they seemed to panic for a while. Several riot trucks full of police roared in and blocked the bridge. When they took a closer look at the sheer size of the crowd, they turned around.
The crowd finally arrived and surrounded the judicial center. A tense standoff that lasted for several hours followed. The activists asked the police to take off their riot gear and then modified it to require them to bend their knees. The police were unmoved. Eventually, the crowd became so scarce that PPB felt safe to disperse the crowd. At the end of the night, a small group of protesters crossed the street and was chased by policemen hanging on either side of a riot truck and shooting wildly at everyone they saw. It's a bit bad-I don't have other words to describe it.
Robert was hit in the foot. It is civil strife and illegal assembly now! upgrade! pic.twitter.com/uRLkcNuqDn
— The 45th ןǝןןɐɹɐd ʇsıpɹnsqɐ ǝpɐbıɹq (@45thabsurdist) June 1, 2020
After the first terrible weekend, the situation in Portland began to stabilize to a predictable state. On Monday, June 1, the second mass rally was held in the Revolution Hall near the city center, similar in scale to the rally on May 31. These people tried to march to the judicial center, but at this time the police had requested the construction of a huge barbed wire fence to isolate it from the federal courts and the rest of the city.
The protests on June 1 were completely different from any previous protests. A new group of inexperienced militants hit the road. They attach great importance to talking to the police and avoid any confrontation. They succeeded in this regard. The crowd marched across the Hawthorne Bridge, toured the city center, and then marched back to the Revolution Hall with almost no police in sight.
This will prove to be the beginning of a division within the protest movement in Oregon. On the one hand, there are more moderate liberal demonstrators who are conducting "peaceful protests" while trying to avoid conflicts with the police. On the other hand are the more radical demonstrators who think the rally on June 1 is meaningless. After this night, the two parts of the movement became more and more separated.
The more moderate demonstrators gathered around a new organization called Rose City Justice, which continued to lead mass demonstrations in the next few weeks. Most of their marches followed the same basic pattern as on June 1, although they also occupied large areas of roads many times. They succeeded in avoiding conflicts with the police, but their numbers quickly dwindled. On June 30th, they announced the end of their night parade.
At the same time, the more extreme members of the movement tended to stage a series of night protests around the wall separating the judicial center and courthouse from the rest of the city. Because of a joke I made during the live broadcast, they started to call it the "sacred fence". It now has a Twitter account.
From the very beginning, the assembly on the fence was subjected to intense police violence. On June 2, after another mass rally that became the Rose City Justice Organization, about a thousand militants left and approached the fence. They demanded to be allowed to protest at the Justice Center, and were forced off the fence by a series of police ramming ammunition and tear gas.
The crowd repeatedly reformed and continued to march on the fence. The police eventually responded with indiscriminate hand grenades and surrounded the crowd in all directions with a tear gas wall. The amount of gas used was so large that a photo of the resulting nightmare was used in the dissemination of New York Magazine:
Portland, Oregon, published two pages in New York Magazine. pic.twitter.com/EWnlC6ghJR
— Aaron Mesh (@AaronMesh) June 20, 2020
Third, a large number of motorists who were stuck in traffic were used by the police to use tear gas, temporarily blinding some of them, and helping to trigger eight lawsuits aimed at prohibiting PPB from using tear gas.
As we all know, "Tear Gas Tuesday" was also the first night that the Portland crowd was able to reform repeatedly after being dispersed by police gas. As an activist told me after experiencing a particularly severe poisonous gas, "This is only the first time it was really scary. Then I got used to it." The crowd of Sacred Fence began to bring more traffic cones. Detox gas canisters-they also brought umbrellas and shields to deflect the impact ammunition. They continued to march on the fence, prompting the police to reduce the fence to cover only the area near the judicial center and court.
Thereafter, the nightly demonstrations proceeded at a predictable pace. Crowds will gather around the fence and question the police inside. On certain nights, the police will choose to start firing shock ammunition into the crowd and eventually gasify them. On other nights, they won't. Since the crowd threw something at the fence: fireworks, water bottles, and even a can of beans at one time, it was reasonable for the police to use force every time. And, obviously, half-eaten Granny Smith's apple.
More items thrown to the police were recovered: complete drink cans, bricks, bottles, stones, food. pic.twitter.com/RTGILdcUKS
— Portland Police (@PortlandPolice) June 6, 2020
Portland police demolished the fence on June 15 as night demonstrations at the Justice Center gradually reduced to only a few hundred people on a good night. Protests at the Justice Center have become a routine way out for activists, and people can go there anytime to clashed with the police. Normally, the night there ends in violence.
However, from late June to early July, protesters began to experiment with different strategies. From June 14th to 18th, some small group activists began to destroy the statue, the first being Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. On June 25, spurred by the establishment of the Seattle Autonomous Region, hundreds of Portland militants tried to occupy the North District and were forced out by tear gas and batons. Once, Portland police broke the window of a protester’s car and pulled them out of tear gas.
Police deployed tear gas on the streets of Portland to pull people from their cars into gasoline. #Portlandprotest #blacklivesmatter #PDXprotests #pdx #oregon #blm #acab #northprecinct #portland pic.twitter.com/FIswALdILG
-Garrison Davis (Teargas Proof) (@hungrybowtie) June 26, 2020
After being driven out of the police station, the crowd lit a huge dumpster fire, and they used the fire to stop the police from advancing for a few minutes.
For unknown reasons, a small group of activists moved to Mid-K Beauty Supply adjacent to the North District and lit the plywood covering the windows. This was a controversial decision that angered several members of the crowd. As the police advanced and started firing tear gas, more militants put out the fire before escaping.
The next day, on June 26, several black community leaders in Portland issued a statement condemning the demonstrations in the North District. One of the pastors, Dr. Steven Holt, called the Mid-K Beauty Supply fire a "terrorist activity." The team and Mayor Ted Wheeler held a press conference in front of the burnt plywood exterior wall of Mid-K.
At the end of June, Portland’s protest culture entered a strange rhythm. The Justice Center has a rally every night, sometimes ending with police violence, sometimes ending with a party. Several new rallies are held every week in places such as the North District or Portland Police Association headquarters. These are often vigorously promoted by the anti-fascist group Youth Liberation Front, and they may be the strongest unanimous voice at the site of radical protests in Portland. On any given day, Portlanders can usually find some kind of peaceful assembly or, if they want, they will end up in a skirmish with the PPB.
On June 11, a federal judge in Portland issued a two-week ban on the use of tear gas. This is a partial approval of the requirements of the local militant group Don't Shoot Portland. According to the terms of the "ban", Portland police can only use natural gas as a "life-saving measure." However, this ban has a loophole. Riots are considered a life-threatening situation, so PPB is increasingly issuing riot statements to justify their use of tear gas.
In a five-day period, from June 30 to July 4, PPB announced three riots. The reason for this is usually problematic. For example: The rally on June 30 was a march of about three hundred people that ended at the headquarters of the Portland Police Association. PPA is the local police union in Portland. It is a private entity, but the city seems to have deployed a lot of resources to protect it.
When the marchers arrived at the PPA building in North Portland, it was already surrounded by riot lines, and many police cars and riot soldiers were waiting. The state police guarding the front of the building did not wear identification numbers or name tags. A few minutes after the crowd arrived, the police declared the assembly illegal and asked the crowd to disperse. They proved this by citing "criminal activity" in the crowd, but what this means is unclear.
Within an hour, without a clear reason, PPB declared a riot and started firing tear gas into the crowd and surrounding communities. Local residents were turned away, and some ended up trapped outside their houses and apartments, surrounded by gas clouds.
A few weeks later, on July 14, a second parade once again formed around the headquarters of the Portland Police Association. During this riot, a police officer slapped a mobile phone from an militant and hit it on the window of the PPA building. It broke a window, and PPB used it as a reason to announce the riot and deploy tear gas.
Therefore, this is a video from TeebsGaming at https://t.co/DafGnlPdl3. The video shows a police officer smashing the phone from the protester onto the window of the PPA building. Then they used broken windows as a reason to announce "riots" and poison gas. #PortlandProtest pic.twitter.com/x8iqQMFvTx
— KBOO Community Radio (@KBOO) July 14, 2020
Portland police have also been prosecuted for treating local reporters. They often targeted the media during demonstrations, and the worst night so far was the first protest by the Portland Police Association. Three reporters were arrested within minutes: Cory Elia, Lesley McLam and Justin Yau.
The video shot by Elia shows that his encounter began when he walked past a police officer he recognized, John Bartlett (John Bartlett) and mentioned his name during the live broadcast. Officer Bartlett overturned Ilya's cell phone from his hand. A few minutes later, a group of police caught Ilya, threw him to the ground and arrested him. He was charged with two counts of assaulting the police.
I filmed the process of Elia's arrest and did not see any signs of resistance. You can judge for yourself here.
Justin Qiu was arrested on the same evening for filming and arresting himself. He was also charged with a felony riot. Lesley McLam also initially faced felony charges, but the district attorney rejected these charges. The arrests occurred weeks after Portland police attacked some local journalists. Sergio Olmos was repeatedly pushed and shoved by the police on the night of June 6. That night, Cory Elia was thrown against the wall and kicked to the ground. Reporter Donovan Farley was attacked on June 7 while trying to film the arrest process. The police beat him in the leg with a truncheon and beat him with a mace when he tried to leave.
On July 2, less than 48 hours after the parade in the PPA building, U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon issued a temporary restraining order against the city, prohibiting the police from arresting or using force against anyone they “know or should know”. Reporter or legal observer. Two weeks later, on July 16, Portland police arrested local journalist Andrew Jankowski while he was covering a demonstration.
At this time, most of the Portland journalists, including me, were actively prosecuting the Portland Police Department. The federal ban does seem to ease their behavior, but in the final analysis, the level of anger of individual officials seems to be the only real factor in determining whether a reporter should stay overnight in prison.
On July 4th, Portland held a protest for the 39th consecutive night. More than a thousand people gathered in front of the Justice Center and Federal Court in the downtown area. They began to fire dozens of commercial-grade fireworks on the concrete exterior walls of the two buildings, prompting the police and federal agents in the two buildings to respond.
What happened next was no different from the siege in the Middle Ages. A few weeks ago, after the first riot, the windows of both government buildings were covered with plywood. The police inside shot through the killing hole in the plywood, spraying rubber bullets, pepper balls and foam bombs into the crowd, while the crowd formed a shield-bearer phalanx to protect the men and women who fired fireworks. Federal agents poured tear gas into the streets, but frontline activists in Portland were no longer afraid of tear gas. The FBI and the police were eventually forced to use batons to disperse the crowd.
As early as 2017, I reported on the battle in Mosul. Of course, what happened on the streets of Portland that night was not as cruel or dangerous as actual combat. However, it is almost as close as possible without using live ammunition. Sometimes, within a few minutes, dozens of flashes and fireworks will explode under our feet. Then my ears rang for several days. My hands are shaking. I can't write for several days.
The whole situation triggered the first major federal response to the Portland night protests. It started in the media, where CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan condemned local activists as "criminals."
"These are not protesters, but criminals. They got together and actually brought weapons, shields, frozen water bottles, stones, lasers, and weapons with the intention of destroying the Federal Building and harming law enforcement personnel."
I have some questions about this, because the Federal Court or Judicial Center has never had any real chance of being severely damaged by fireworks. At this stage of the protests, these two buildings are essentially fortresses. Before federal agents opened fire, the militants in the park actually seemed more interested in launching fireworks at the Justice Center to provide performances for their friends detained inside.
A prisoner in the justice center began to wave to the crowd with joy. pic.twitter.com/Esvm37oMHN
-Robert Evans (the only Robert Evans) (@IwriteOK) July 5, 2020
I also disagree with the next thing Mark Morgan said:
"One of the criminals actually tried to assault a CBP employee when he was arrested. The current report is that a tube bomb-a fusion incendiary device and a machete-was actually found during the search. Think...think about the fatal consequences of these crimes."
This is quite interesting, because the Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security actually posted this picture of the "pipe bomb":
You may notice that this "bomb" does not have a hole for a fuse. When I showed this to activists on the street, most of them thought it might be a window-breaking device. Now that we have allegations from that weekend, it seems very likely. The man with the machete is Andrew Faulkner. He was accused of assaulting federal officials by illuminating the faces of federal officials with a laser pointer. Neither he nor any other Portland protesters faced any charges related to possession of the tube bomb.
Mark Morgan called this device and other "weapons" of these protesters deadly. However, so far, the only person dying from these demonstrations is Donovan Labella. On Saturday, July 11, La Bella participated in a night rally in front of the Justice Center. Those present at the time described that when federal agents and American marshals began to rush to arrest and shoot protesters, the overall mood was low and the crowd was passive.
In the video below, Donovan can be seen holding a set of speakers above his head. Federal agents fired ammunition at him, and he gently threw it away. He didn't throw the ammunition to the officer, just stay away from himself. After that, a federal agent shot him directly in the skull with a rubber bullet. Donovan fell immediately and his skull shattered.
The officer hit someone in the head with what appeared to be impact ammunition, and there was a lot of blood. #blacklivesmatter #pdx #portlandoregon #oregon #blm #acab #portland #justicecenter pic.twitter.com/8JmR3QA0AN
-Garrison Davis (Teargas Proof) (@hungrybowtie) July 12, 2020
The use of force experts interviewed by Oregon Live stated that the agent may not intend to hit Donovan in the head, “because the risk of serious injury is high.” Retired Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Commander Sid Heal said: “In this particular situation There is no reasonable way to say that lethal force is authorized.” On July 18, the New York Times reported a leaked Department of Homeland Security memo that warned that agents deployed to Portland had not received control. Training to riot or manage protests.
On July 10, the day before Donovan was shot and killed, President Donald Trump congratulated the head of the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolfe for suppressing the Portland protest movement. At a meeting of military commanders in Doral, Florida, he praised Wolfe and said: “It’s out of control. The locals can’t stand it, you guys handled it well—so good that the media didn’t want to write about it. NS."
However, the protests and riots certainly continued, even after La Bella was brutally maimed. As I typed, hundreds of Portlanders were engaged in a series of intense skirmishes with federal agents and police, just like most nights since the end of May. As the federal army failed to contain the riots, the Trump administration became more violent in their rhetoric. Acting Secretary Wolfe visited Portland on the 16th. He called the protesters "lawless anarchists". In a statement issued on the same day, he wrote:
"The Federal Court is a symbol of justice-to attack it is to attack the United States. Instead of addressing violent criminals in the community, local and state leaders have focused on putting the blame on law enforcement and calling for the reduction of police in the community. This failed response will only make the violent mob bolder, because it escalates violence day by day."
This is untrue. In the past few weeks, almost all crimes in Portland, including violent crimes, have been on the decline. There are also other inaccuracies in the acting secretary’s statement. Much of this letter is a dated list of alleged crimes committed by Portland protesters, who are often referred to as "violent anarchists." Under the heading 07/05/2020:
This is of course very cunning. By declaring that it "appears" to be a tube bomb, the statement avoids the fact that a real tube bomb has never been discovered and no one has been charged for possession of a bomb. Although Acting Minister Wolff claimed that these demonstrators were very violent, most of the crimes he blamed on them were simple vandalism:
Perhaps as the protests continue, this situation will change. But so far, the only upgrade seen recently is that federal agents are now roaming the streets of downtown Portland in a rented van, seeming to arrest militants at will. These people did not show identification, did not have name tags or badge numbers, or anything else that might help identify them. This fact naturally shocked Americans across the country, but at this point, it is nothing new to Portland protesters.
Portland police have been hiding their names for weeks, instead using numbers that cannot be associated with names in any way available to citizens. Members of a number of different law enforcement agencies have been supervising the demonstrations from the beginning, and the participation rules of all law enforcement agencies are different from the PPB. As local reporter Tucker Woodstock pointed out on Twitter:
"This is a natural escalation of the past 7 weeks. This is the result of Portlanders protesting against police brutality for 50 days: even stranger police brutality. Portlanders take risks every day. Please pay attention."
In other words, in the end, the Portland press corps and people protesting on the street every night seemed to hope for something from other parts of the United States. Please pay attention to the video of the police tearing off people's masks and spraying mace directly into their mouths. Pay attention to the video of Donovan LaBella, with blood pouring from his head and falling to the ground. And, yes, watch out for videos of heavily armed men kidnapping militants on the street.
Please note, because I believe all of these will not be limited to Portland. Your city may be next.
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