Protestants in Portland used swimming pool noodles filled with nails as weapons and threw frozen eggs and rocks at officers during a demonstration outside a Legislative building Friday night.
Officers tried to disperse crowds of hundreds of people almost immediately after they came outside the Penumbra Kelly building – which houses both the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office and the Portland Police Bureau – at about 9:45 p.m.
PORTLAND MAYOR RECEIVES RIOTERS OF ‘SERVICE JOURNAL’
A protester led a crowd of protesters toward the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office on Saturday, August 7, 2020 in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo / Nathan Howard)
Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck. Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck. Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck.
Protesters, some wearing helmets and gas masks, and wearing shields, began breaking large pieces of concrete on the sidewalk and throwing them at police. Others tried to block traffic on East Burnside Street.
Some protesters aimed lasers at officers, who could injure their eyes, and threw commercial-grade fireworks at police in a parking lot.
One person arrested carried ballistic assault weapons, police said. At midnight, a car was stopped and a resident was arrested for illuminating a laser on a police plane.
Portland police officers make an arrest while dispersing protesters in front of the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office early on Saturday, August 8, 2020 in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo / Nathan Howard)
“This ongoing criminal activity has created a very dangerous situation,” police said.
Officials did not say how many arrests were made.
“When the officers dispersed the crowd, rocks, bottles and explosives were continuously launched at lieutenants. Because of the danger these projectiles inflicted, officers used ammunition to control people as they moved the group.”
Pool noodles filled with nails were used by Protestants to damage police cars, officials said.
Earlier in the day, a group of people gathered at a park in east Portland and marched to the local police station, where authorities say they spray-painted the building, jumped on the tires of police cars, spray-painted paint on the walls, and security cameras vandalized and set a fire in a barrel outside the building.
One officer was seriously injured by a rock, police said, but no further details were provided.
The fierce exchanges overshadowed another peaceful demonstration that opposed police brutality against Blacks and minorities that occurred earlier in the night. Police said they had no interaction with that public.
Democratic Mayor Ted Wheeler said this week that violent Protestants serve as political “props” for President Trump, who has tried to portray all Protestants as “sick and dangerous anarchists” walking the streets.
The chaos that began Thursday night and last Friday morning in a residential neighborhood about 6 miles from downtown was remarkably smaller than the crowds of thousands who appeared in July for about two weeks in July to protest the presence of federal agents who were sent by the Trump administration to protect a federal courthouse that had become a target of night violence.
Law enforcement on Saturday has been bracing for the 71st night of protests since George Floyd’s death in May. Floyd, an unarmed Black man, died in police custody after a Minneapolis official knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
