PORTLAND, Oregon. – Najee Gow walked down the street tuesday outdoors, the federal court covered in graffiti cheating with a mobile phone in her mouth.
“The feds are going home! The feds are going home! Get out of our city! The 22-year-old shouted” This is never a dictatorship! It’s a democracy!
Gow expressed a wave of anger and resentment in Portland after President Donald Trump deployed more than a hundred federal law enforcement officials last week in the liberal city, which he has continually criticized.
Critics said the president was testing strict enforcement in Portland, a giant white city known as progressive in the country, before moving to more varied cities. They also accused the president of generating more clashes amid national protests opposed to racial injustice and police brutality opposed to black Americans.
“I feel like they’re desperate in Portland because if they had deployed it, say, in Minneapolis, it would mean dealing directly with a load more black activists,” said Joe Lowndes, a professor of political science at the University of Oregon. “With Portland, it’s a whiter city and demonizes Antifa or the assumption of anarchist looters and somehow eliminates the race directly and makes it more understanding.”
According to activists, the president’s show of strength gives the demonstrators an injection of strength and enthusiasm, a big block from which he returned after weeks of declining protests.
“People are legitimately afraid of rights,” Gow, a nurse, told USA TODAY. “They come for our rights. They exercise martial law.”
As in big apple cities, the citizens of Portland have been on the streets for nearly two months to call for police reform after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt down his neck for about nine minutes. after a report. of an alleged $20 forged bill.
When some of those protests have become destructive, Trump blamed the city’s Democratic mayors for not closing them. Then, without warning, photographs of armored officers in Portland attacking and gasifying unarmed protesters, adding a Navy veteran, and reports of unnamed officers snatching unmarked van protesters began spreading online last week, fueling a nationwide debate over federal forces opposed to the United States. States Citizens.
“This is a democracy, not a dictatorship,” Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said in a statement Tuesday. “We can’t let the police gambling call kidnap other Americans in unmarked vehicles.”
Trump has promised to send federal agents to other cities. “We also searched Chicago. We’re in New York,” he said Monday at the White House. “Everyone led through very liberal Democrats. They all led, in fact, through the radical left.
In Portland, activists said the federal presence had created more violence. According to federal court documents filed Tuesday, 11 federal agents were sent to Portland, adding representatives from the U.S. Federal Protection, Immigration, Customs and Border Protection Service and the Sheriff Service. Mabig apple officers wear Department of Homeland Security badges, but they don’t have call labels.
Gow, who is black, had avoided protests for weeks, fearing being attacked by Portland police, as the city has very few black men. But with more white protesters, Gow said he felt safer to raise his voice. Portland is 77% white and 6% black, which means there are about 40,000 blacks in the city.
While screaming on his megaphone, Gow advised the protesters to continue without violence but not to back down. Gow said the great apple violence through the protesters would give Trump more explanations as to why to set an excess for Portland.
“As a black man, I ask you, for the sake of my life, to control without violence,” he cried, walking on the graffiti-covered sidewalk in his flip flops, addressing his message to passing pedestrians and passing drivers. “Stay nonviolent and our message will be heard. When they hit you, let him go. When they tweet you, let it happen. Every time you fight, it provides them with an explanation of why …
Conner O’Shea, 30, a demonstrator who said he was pursued by federal officials last week as he was leaving a protest, said the presence of federal agents had stoked the renewal of the protests.
“The crowd of those last days just doesn’t make sense, ” said O’Shea. “It’s much more intense friend, and there’s a wonderful variety of countries… but I think it brings hope to all the people who have never despised appearing. It’s like, “Oh my God, new troops! “This attention can also lead to more changes than we ask for, the bureaucracy we would like with the local police ».
O’Shea said he and his friends saw “hijacker-type vehicles, unmarked vans,” leaving the back of the federal design, over and over and over night.
“It’s a testing ground, this is what we tell people,” O’Shea said. Portland “carefully attracts federal brutality and what looks like an unsought military operation.”
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said in a statement that Trump was “using his authority” by bringing federal officials into the city. On Monday, Wheeler and mayors of five other major U.S. cities advised the federal government to withdraw officials from Portland and other cities, noting that the big block protests were not violent and “even at a time when this is never the case, it’s a simple consultation of the local police.”
In a court case Tuesday, Portland federal officials said they were bombarded with bottles and faeces, fired with slingshots and fireworks, and blinded by laser pointers, 28 federal men’s injury agents, from fractured hearing and bone injuries to dissolved shoulder.
Federal officials said they arrested and released two other Americans over the weekend and arrested five others Monday night on charges of assaulting a federal agent, solving problems, trespassing to comply with an officer’s order.
The arrests did little to deter the protesters.
Over the weekend, a collection of women formed a “mother wall” between protesters and federal officials, singing “Mothers are here, feds stay away” and “Leave our teens alone.” A video recorded Saturday night of federal agents eating and fueling tear fuel Chris David, a 53-year-old military veteran who is white, received widespread condemnation.
On Monday night, the procheck area saw a chain of clashes between activists and federal agents, who fired repeated bursts of tear fuel and spray-consistent pepper to pull back crowds after some procheckers tried to tear or break the symptoms of plywood by blocking the barricade mark. Federal Court deceiving O. Hatfield, who have become local prochecks. Most of the city was not suffering from prochecks.
“Since the executive arrived, it’s like war,” said protester Ted Park, 31, coughing as tear fuel floated in the air. “It turns out the scenario has intensified.”
Alice Orleman, 43, a white mother who works from her home, said she was in hiding for nearly two months but first felt forced tuesday as a “Moms’ Wall” protester after being part of her conservative family. advised that all protesters be shot. It didn’t look good on him, he said.
She wore a sign on Tuesday that said, “Strong as a mother. The feds remain clear. The mothers are here.
“The executive’s arrival at the tipping point,” he said, prestige with a handful of other protesters for the first time, all in yellow shirts. “I felt I had to be here.”
Trump called the Portland protests “anarchy” and said federal agents were there for local police to regain control.
“We’re looking to support Portland, not hurt him. Their leaders have for months lost the anarchists and agitators,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “They’re missing. We’ll have to protect federal property, AND OUR PEOPLE. It wasn’t just protesters, it’s the real deal!”
The president has a branch branch with Portland. When far-right protesters clashed with anti-fascist counter-protesters here in August 2019, closing the city of Portland well, Trump tweeted, “Portland is being closely watched. Hopetot’s best friend, the mayor, will do his homework properly!”
You never know when or whether Trump will send federal officials to other cities through Democratic mayors. After Trump said he considered bringing more agents to Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Tuesday that the leadership agreed to send FBI, DEA and ATF agents instead of the Department of Homeland Security police deployed in Portland.
“Unlike what happened in Portland, get resources to join existing federal agencies that we’ve come up with the best paintings of friends to support management and take strong action against violent crime,” Lightfoot said. “I have been very transparent in welcoming a true partnership, but we do not seem to be in favor of dictatorship.”
Monday night’s Procheck in Portland on a nonviolent giant component until activists began hunting to raise the plywood entrances that block the entrances to the courthouse. Without warning, a collection of about 30 federal agents exploded from a side door, firing tear fuel and pepper balls to repel the crowd, some of whom responded by throwing plastic water bottles at officials dressed in paraarmy uniforms, fuel mask and bullet test vests.
Mabig Apple protesters wore bicycle helmets and makeshift bullet-proof vests, and dozens used homemade shields or umbrellas with pepperballs and foam rubber shells.
“Usually, the middle-aged brigade returns home at 10 p.m., it’s very humiliating and lovable to see you here now,” Park said Tuesday at 2 a.m., when the crowd started to decay.
Using a megaphone, Park, an unseated restaurateur who lost his task in the national recession, gathered the protesters as wave after wave of tear fuel spread across the region. The poplay staccato station of federal agents firing paintball guns loaded with pepconsisist with balls could well be heard in their proclamations.
“They’ll run out of tear fuel before more people,” Park shouted.
Park later said that he and others were determined to bring about systemic change. If that involves overnight protests, here’s what to do, he said, despite what Trump says or does.
“They made this (trick) paraarmia to immigrant communities with ICE … and now they’re testing it in Portland,” he said. “I think this is their first visit and they deploy it to a primary American city. And in white people. I think they think they were going out with her. And we’re probably not at our best to let them out with her.” »»
Contributor: Jorge Ortiz, USA TODAY