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Ongoing NEO-Fascist/Anti-fascist Protests and Attempts to Curtail Them Over the last few months, several Portland protests drew significant Portland Police Bureau (PPB) response. In November, Mayor Ted Wheeler proposed a questionable ordinance to restrict how, when and where people can protest. In October, news emerged about police finding people apparently affiliated with the alt-right group Patriot Prayer with three rifles on top of a parking garage just before the August 4 rally, which ended with serious police violence (PPR #75). Initial reports from PPB said loaded arms were confiscated, but later the reports changed. On October 16, KOIN-TV reported officers found four people with three empty rifles in carrying cases. The men told the cops they were a "quick extraction team" for comrades who might get injured at the protest. It is not why clear why police let them go after discovering they had concealed weapons permits, since you cannot conceal a rifle. They let the men lock the guns and (separated) ammunition into the back of a pickup truck.
An October 13 "Law and Order" rally was led by the white nationalist Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer in downtown Portland. Both were met with counter-protestors who outnumbered the neo- fascists. A few Patriot Prayer members and Antifa fought briefly with fists, batons and bear spray before being dispersed by police. On November 8, in response to violence among protesters, Mayor Wheeler proposed his ordinance to give the police commissioner control over time and place of protests. It presented serious constitutional questions, as noted by the ACLU, the National Lawyers Guild, Portland Copwatch and others. When Council discussed these exceptional powers, based on police predictions of who will engage in violence, Commissioner Chloe Eudaly questioned police protest tactics in detail, receiving evasive responses in chambers, and later in writing. Mayor Wheeler was authoritarian in defending the curtailing of civil rights. Chief Outlaw and others referred to a past golden age of peaceful protest, ignoring the history of violent police actions including use of military grade "less- lethal" weapons. On November 14, City Commissioners voted the plan down, 2-3, with Commissioners Fritz, Eudaly and Fish voting against it. Three days later, a "Him Too" rally in Terry Schrunk Plaza was countered by a larger rally in Chapman Square supporting survivors of sexual assault. The events were separated by a police designated no-persons land, including shutting down the half of Chapman which is directly across from the Plaza. These actions were consistent with the Mayor's failed ordinance and allegedly were done using existing laws, perhaps proving critics right that the Mayor did not need enhanced powers. The enforcement was paternalistic and perpetuated the appearance of police protecting neo- Nazis and not anti-fascists. Police arrested six people, including both nationalist elements and counter-protestors. At two rallies protesting the Sept. 30 police killing of African American Patrick Kimmons (p. 1), civilians drove their cars into protestors. On October 6, police did not intervene. After the grand jury decision not to indict Kimmons' killers on October 31, drivers hit two protestors. One driver, a white male, was arrested. Eudaly's speech before the November 14 vote included an accurate definition of anarchism as a philosophy based on mutual aid and non-violence, saying she would take an anarchist over a fascist any day.
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January, 2019
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Portland Copwatch Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.
People's Police Report
#76 Table of Contents
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Aaron Cantu, the protestor who suffered brain damage when a police flash-bang device hit
the back of his helmet on August 4, filed a lawsuit (Willamette Week, September 19). The
PPB has not admitted responsibility.