It was 10 p.m. Wednesday when Davis Beeman and his team of volunteers gathered outside a light rail station in downtown Portland, Oregon, to prepare for another night of protests.
The streets were crowded and the atmosphere was festive. But everyone knew that the calm would not last.
For weeks Beeman had been providing first aid to protesters.
The seven volunteers dressed in helmets, gas masks, and vests marked with red crosses. They filled their backpacks with gauze, saline, bandages, and iodine.
“It could get bad tonight,” Beeman told his group.
The protests have intensified in recent days, largely fueled by the presence of federal agents who were sent to the city by the Trump administration without the consent of local politicians and who have been accused of catching protesters from the streets. without probable cause and take them away. in unmarked vehicles.
The mayor had left on Wednesday night to address protesters, and while the city has asked agents to leave, Beeman was concerned that the appearance would only inflame tensions.
His team began heading toward federal court, now the epicenter of the nightly protests.
“I’m happy that you’re here!” more than one person yelled at them. “Thanks for all that you do!”
Volunteers watched a corner and stared, waiting for cries for help or messages from other teammates who were watching the broadcasts of the protests online.
By 11:30 p.m., the crowd outside the courthouse had grown to nearly 1,000 people. The drums sounded in the background as protesters intensified their chants cursing the police, the mayor and federal agents. Some fired fireworks.
A small fire burned inside the fence that federal agents had erected in front of the court.
Beeman felt the tension was about to reach a tipping point. Suddenly, when he turned his head to speak to a fellow doctor, there was a loud bang. White smoke filled the sky: tear gas.
Federal officials had fired it from inside the courthouse to disperse the crowd.
“Return!” shouted a protester. “Return!”
Protesters pass tear gas dispersed by federal agents in Portland.
(Noah Berger / Associated Press)
Beeman, a 38-year-old cybersecurity expert, had come to the protests since they started in late May. He strongly supports the national movement against racism and police brutality, and as a Navy veteran with basic first aid training and combat awareness, he thought he could be an asset to the cause.
At first he worked alone, pushing his way through the crowds looking for someone who needed help. But he eventually joined a newly formed group called Emergency Workers for Our Community, or EWOK, which was started by supporters of Danialle James, a prominent local black activist.
The organization, which is part of several groups that help protesters, has several dozen volunteers who work in small teams. Volunteers include some doctors and nurses, but most have only informal medical training.
In the past few days, Beeman and many of his companions had been hit by pepper balls and rubber bullets.
As he moved down the block, he urged the crowd to retreat.
“Do not run!” the Scream. “Walk!”
He noticed that a man next to him with a leaf blower, used to dissipate tear gas, appeared to be suffocating.
“They are my lungs,” said the man. “I can’t breathe.”
Beeman evaluated what was happening to him, rinsed his eyes with saline, took out a bottle of water, and then escorted him out of the area.
Brooke Hazel, another Beeman team volunteer, tried to reassure the frantic protester.
“Do you have any previous medical conditions?” she asked.
The man shook his head as he gasped for air.
“Listen to me, I will help you,” said Hazel, a 37-year-old bank teller.
There was not much time.
“Doctor!” Someone shouted. “We need a doctor!”
It took Beeman several seconds to find a protester sitting nearby, eyes closed, head tilted back, another victim of tear gas.
Several more tear gas explosions echoed from the courthouse a block away.
James, the activist, slowly approached the fence that blocked the entrance to the courthouse.
“We can see you!” He yelled through a loudspeaker at the federal agents he saw through the open door.
“Black lives matter!”
The protesters cheered.
Black Lives Matter leaders estimated that approximately 2,000 people were present, an increase they attribute to the growing clash in recent weeks over the presence of federal agents.
Oregon Atty. General Ellen Rosenblum has sued four federal agencies to demand that officers properly identify themselves, stop making arrests without court orders or probable cause, and explain to people why they are being detained.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler tried to address the crowd on Wednesday night with an anti-Trump message. But protesters quickly yelled at him and accused him of not controlling the Portland Police Office, which they say has been cooperating with federal agents.
At one point, he, too, was bitten by tear gas, according to the Associated Press.
He was already gone when Hazel heard someone yell for a doctor.
A man sitting in a folding chair in the middle of the street pushed his head forward and pointed at his collarbone. He had been hit by a projectile.
Beeman removed a gauze pack from his backpack and tended to the wound.
By 1 am, his team had attended to more than a dozen injured protesters. Protesters were starting to go home.
Brooke Hazel rests in the back of a pickup truck after spending the night tending to injured protesters in Portland. The volunteer doctor had helped a dozen protesters when he finished at 1:30 am
(Melissa Etehad / Los Angeles Times)
“How do you feel?” Beeman asked his teammates.
“I still want to be here,” replied one.
“I need to call him one night. I haven’t slept much, “said another.
“Since some of us feel mentally unprotected, we should call him one night,” Beeman said before taking several volunteers to his car.
Some stayed behind as the crowd dwindled to a few hundred.
Beeman and three other volunteers climbed into his truck.
As they walked away, a loud bang caught their attention. Tear gas stung their eyes and filled their throats. For a moment, they considered going back.
But they had to start resting for the next day.
