The withdrawal of federal frontline police officers from the protests in downtown Portland significantly reduced tensions in the city overnight.
Protesters in support of Black Lives Matter gathered once again near the federal courthouse which became a flashpoint, and the scene of nightly battles amid the whirlwind of tear gas, after Donald Trump dispatched officers to put an end to what he called anarchy in the city after weeks of protests. .
But in the absence of federal officials, the protest on Thursday night passed without further incident or police intervention.
On Wednesday, Oregon Governor Kate Brown agreed with the White House that the state police would take over surveillance of the court after weeks of mounting protests. She said that “Trump’s troops” were behaving like an occupying army in Portland and causing riots with heavy-handed tactics.
In contrast, state police officers did not intervene even as the scale of the Thursday night protest passed the point, when protesters shook the fence around the courthouse, in which in early demonstrations federal agents generally fired tear gas. , stun grenades and staff rounds. .
In the absence of confrontations, and with the state police largely unseen inside the courthouse, tensions quickly subsided. Without federal forces to attract attention, protest organizers kept the focus on Black Lives Matters and the Portland police reform.
Some in the crowd worked to avoid trouble by stopping protesters by lighting fires and firing fireworks in court as they had done the previous nights.
Dan Thomas, an African American man, was on the street yelling at people not to cause a confrontation with the state police.
Attacking the federal building is not a matter of black lives. Leave it alone. You are playing in Trump’s hands, ”he said.
One woman yelled, “Stupid white idiots here just for their own reasons.”
Despite concerns from many in the crowd that the Trump administration would not abide by the agreement to withdraw federal officials, none were seen on the streets.
Trump tweeted that agents will remain in Portland until Brown controls the protests led by “anarchists and agitators.”
“If she can’t do it, the federal government will do it for her. We won’t leave until there is security! Trump wrote.
Brown and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said state and municipal police forces will seek to reduce protests rather than confront protesters.
Wheeler said that city police, state police and the county sheriff’s office had agreed not to use tear gas, except when there was a threat to life or serious injury.
“Federal officials are using CS gas widely, indiscriminately, and at night,” he said. “That is why it is intensifying the behavior that we are seeing on the streets rather than de-escalating it, and that is why this must come to an end.”
Wheeler apologized that the Portland police used tear gas in late May and June to break up the Black Lives Matter protests.
“It should never have happened,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Portland police cleaned up the two parks in front of the county courthouse and jail that served as the scene of the protests. Officers then sealed the parks and marked them closed. But that seemed oddly provocative and difficult to enforce.
When a few protesters tore down the yellow police tape and began singing, “Whose park is it? Our park? Portland city officials quietly left the park and were not seen again for the rest of the night.
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