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One person was shot and killed in Portland after clashes between Black Lives Matter protesters and supporters of US President Donald Trump, according to police.
The city of Oregon has been an epicenter of BLM protests since the police murder of unarmed black George Floyd in Minnesota in late May, and according to local media a “caravan of hundreds of cars” of Trump supporters also converged there yesterday. .
Portland police tweeted that a political demonstration was “going through downtown Portland,” adding: “There have been some instances of violence between protesters and counter-protesters. Officers have intervened and in some cases made arrests.”
OregonLive reported “clashes” and “tense moments” between the groups, although police did not say whether the shooting was related to the protests.
The shooting happened around 8:45 p.m. in the city center, police said later in a statement, adding that a homicide investigation was underway.
“Portland police officers heard gunshot sounds from the area of Southeast 3rd Avenue and Southwest Alder Street,” the statement said.
“They responded and located a victim with a gunshot wound to the chest.”
Trump will travel next week to the city of Kenosha, in the American Midwest, where an African-American Jacob Blake was shot multiple times in the back by a white police officer, sparking a wave of protests across the country.
He will meet with police in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Tuesday and “examine the damage from the recent riots” caused by the shooting last weekend, said White House spokesman Judd Deere.
Blake was shot at least half a dozen times in front of his young children as he tried to get into a car, in an incident that sparked a wave of anger over another police shooting of a black man.
Deere did not say if the president of the United States would be reunited with the family of Blake, 29, who was paralyzed from the waist down.
Protesters have taken to the streets in major cities across the country this summer over the deaths of black people at the hands of the police. It is the most widespread civil unrest in the United States for decades.
Trump has characterized the mostly peaceful activists as troublemakers while pushing a message of law and order as he fights an uphill battle for reelection in November.
Kenosha, an hour’s drive from Chicago, saw three nights of violence after the Blake shooting when protesters set buildings and cars on fire.
Major US sports leagues, including the NBA, were forced to suspend the game as African Americans and other players outraged by the shooting joined the latest national wave of anger over racial injustice and police misconduct.
On Friday, tens of thousands of protesters packed the United States capital for a massive march commemorating the anniversary of the historic “I have a dream” speech by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. on August 28, 1963.
He was nicknamed “Take your knee off your neck,” in reference to Floyd, who suffocated under the knee of a white officer.
Often fighting back tears, Floyd’s relatives, Blake and Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old black woman shot to death by police in her apartment last March, took turns heading into the sea of people, who repeatedly yelled names of victims in response.
“Black America, I hold them accountable,” said Blake’s sister, Letetra Widman. “You must stand, you must fight, but not with violence and chaos. With self-love.”
Like his father 57 years ago, Martin Luther King III stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and urged Americans to continue fighting inequality and to vote in November at all costs to defeat Trump in the election.
“We are taking a step forward in America’s difficult but straight journey to justice,” King said.
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