Portland protesters, US agents clash near federal building

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Protesters and U.S. agents assigned to protect federal property in Portland clashed late Wednesday outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Building in another night of violence for Oregon's largest city.

Some people in a crowd of about 200 disabled or vandalized building security cameras, shined laser lights at the agents and threw rocks and bottles at them, Portland police said in a statement issued Wednesday.

During the clashes, agents shot non-lethal munitions at the crowd and set off stun grenades and irritants that released green and white plumes into the air, The Oregonian/Oregonian Live reported.

One apparently injured protester was carried away by fellow demonstrators, the newspaper reported. A federal agent was injured after being hit in the leg by a rock, and police made 11 arrests, the Portland police statement said.

Portland has been gripped by nightly protests for nearly three months since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The demonstrations, often violent, usually target police buildings and federal buildings.

Some protesters have called for reductions in police budgets while the city’s mayor, and some in the Black community have decried the violence, saying it’a counterproductive.

The Wednesday night protest followed another protest where demonstrators smashed windows at City Hall late Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning and 23 people were arrested.

Demonstrators in the crowd of about 150 also threw bottles and eggs at police, put metal bars in the street to try to damage police vehicles and smashed a security camera on the City Hall building, police said in a statement.

Portland’s FBI chief on Wednesday said he is shifting the agency’s resources to focus more heavily on the nightly protests.

On Thursday, prosecutors said they had resolved the first felony case related to the protests when the defendant pleaded guilty.

Rollin Tristan Fodor, 18, entered the plea on a charge of first-degree arson and was sentenced to 45 days of time served, community service and three years of probation.

As part of the plea, Fodor admitted he started a fire in an industrial-sized trash bin outside a beauty supply store near a police precinct during demonstrations on June 26.

Mike Schmidt, Multnomah County's newly elected prosecutor, has said he would dismiss lower-level, non-violent charges against hundreds of people arrested since late May during nightly protests. Felony crimes such as arson, however, will be prosecuted.