In wake of riots in Portland, leaders call for reflection
After a night of rioting in Portland, Oregon, those responsible for the damage to police headquarters, a shopping mall and many businesses will be tracked down, authorities said Saturday, but also adding that this was a moment for soul-searching.
Portland Fire Chief Sara Boone, who is African American, said the anger and violence is not only about the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, but a system that allows people of color to “feel fear every day."
“This is a moment of reckoning,” Boone said at a news conference with other city leaders. “We are going forward, together, to create an actual community where respect and dignity are our core values.”
Jo Ann Hardesty, an African American member of the City Council, said those responsible for the looting and burning were a small group of people who took the opportunity of earlier peaceful protests — that police had largely stayed away from — “to steal stuff and break stuff.”
“We can get justice for black people, but we don’t have to destroy our community to do it,” Hardesty said. She offered to help identify rioters from video images so they could be arrested and prosecuted.
In Seattle, thousands of people gathered downtown to protest. Police set off flash bangs and pepper-sprayed demonstrators who got too close to police lines. Some demonstrators were arrested, though police spokeswoman Sgt. Lauren Truscott didn’t have an exact figure.
Protesters gathered outside Seattle police headquarters earlier Saturday.
“What’s his name?” a protest leader repeatedly asked fellow demonstrators.
“George Floyd!” they answered, then chanted “No justice, no peace.”
Police, wearing normal uniforms and not riot gear, looked on from behind metal barricades, as seen on video tweeted by KOMO News.
In Eugene, Oregon, protesters smashed the windows of a closed Five Guys hamburger restaurant and adjacent locales Friday night as a young black woman who had been leading chants begged them on her megaphone to stop.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler imposed a state of emergency and a curfew, which was to resume Saturday at 8 p.m. and lift at 6 a.m. Sunday.
In the past, Portland has seen numerous violent protests, often between far-right demonstrators and those opposed to them. Community activists have told police their heavy presence can be a trigger for violence. Their presence was light as peaceful protests started Friday.
One vigil for Floyd was held at midday in a downtown plaza. Hours later, around 1,000 people attended another vigil at a park, but then some participants began marching toward downtown Portland, spraying graffiti and smashing windows, police said.
The People of Color Caucus of the Oregon Legislature called the rioters opportunists and outliers who were disregarding the leadership of black community organizers. At one point, black community members placed themselves between a business and vandals to protect it from being destroyed, they said.
“We are just beginning to lay plans to reopen and these actions are destructive to our efforts as we try to weave together what COVID-19 has already torn apart,” the nine lawmakers said.
A man in a car was grazed by a bullet, believed to have been fired by a protester, and he was treated and released from a hospital, police said.
Around 11 p.m., the marchers reached the Justice Center downtown, spray-painted the building, broke windows and started a fire. Riot police were deployed, and the protesters dispersed, some walking to Pioneer Place Mall, where they broke into certain stores and stole merchandise.
As officers began arriving, protesters picked up electric scooters that are ubiquitous in the city and available for rent, and used them to break the windows of police vehicles, the Portland Police Bureau said. The officers retreated.
“No one could have predicted what we saw last night,” Acting Police Chief Chris Davis said at the news conference. “It's extremely difficult to predict where we're going to have this kind of violence.”
Two police officers were injured by a thrown incendiary device and a rock.
Blazes continued to burn early Saturday morning in multiple locations downtown — including a building that housed a bank — and broken glass littered the streets.
Portland's mayor choked up as he described trying to process what was happening to his city and the country.
“People of color, especially black men, have fought for generations to exercise their God-given rights to be valued as equals among men. Yet, time and time again they're reminded that the institutions that are supposed to protect those rights and support the people of this nation instead fail them and deny them their basic rights and, all too often, even their very lives,” Wheeler said.
Portland police arrested at least 13 people before dawn Saturday. Seattle police were reviewing the use of force in one of at least seven arrests Friday night.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and Police Chief Carmen Best told a Friday evening news conference they were outraged by the death of Floyd, a black man who died after a white officer pressed a knee into his neck.
Durkan said the killing reflects the “deep and systemic racism” in the United States.
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Selsky reported from Salem, Oregon. Associated Press news editor Chris Grygiel in Seattle contributed.
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