7:26 pm: One last thing we need to do: Wrap up the mystery of how the 13 hanging protestors came to descend to the Willamette, which was very hard to get a read on from below.

The Portland Fire Bureau’s Lt. Rich Tyler explained the bureau’s special rope rescue team set up its own system on the bridge, and prepared to attach the danglers to it and force them down. Then firefighters cut the ropes demonstrators had linked themselves with, which Tyler said were only meant to block the ship and weren’t for safety.

The first two protestors firefighters approached opted to lower themselves voluntarily. The third wouldn’t talk to authorities, so the fire bureau attached him to its system and sent him river-ward.

Once there was enough room to get the Fennica through, officials pretty much stopped giving a damn about the rest of the protestors, who lowered themselves.

“They were peaceful and cooperative as we interacted with them,” Tyler said.

No word on the number of arrests.

6:50 pm: All 13 protestors have descended from their perches at this point—and it looks like the authorities don’t give a damn about them now that the ship is through.

Meanwhile, Jonah Majure, the guy who locked himself to the railroad bridge south of the St. Johns, has been booked in the Multnomah County Justice Center under tentative charges of first-degree trespass.

Jonah Majure
  • Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office
  • Jonah Majure

Finally, we’ve heard from Mayor Charlie Hales—whom plenty of people are castigating online for what they perceive as fake concern about global warming. His take?

“This was a hard day for me – and for a lot of people in Portland,” Hales said in a canned statement. “I oppose drilling in the Arctic.” He went on to say, though, that today was a “great day” for the city because people were kept safe (well, maybe except the kayaker the sheriff’s office ran down in their boat), the free speech was protected, and the law was upheld.

“Now it’s time to move from protest to action: to changing the laws,” Hales said. “After all, that’s the point of the protest.”

5:55 pm: The Fennica has passed the St. Johns Bridge after a lot of last-minute chaos, and a whole lot of swimmers/kayakers being arrested. It’s all over but the rest of the inevitable arrests and criminal charges (which might ultimately be dropped anyway). The Fennica was always going to break out, but when’s the last time there was a better or more effective action in Portland? This has been an impressive showing from the activist community.

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5:37 pm: The kayaktivists who’d been meekly posted up on the side of the river have bum rushed the center of the Willamette. They’re being chased and harried by the Coast Guard at every paddle. This isn’t done just yet.

5:26 pm: Almost 12 hours after it first attempted to leave Portland, the Fennica is moving again. There are apparently still 10 activists hanging from the bridge. The ship is just over 80 feet wide. Word has reached Cathedral Park that the ship’s coming, Shelby says. “Getting rowdy.” Here we go.

5:06 pm: Now Jonah Majure’s been sprung from the bridge and arrested. That was quick! The Fennica, the entire reason this is happening, remains idle over at Swan Island.

4:46 pm: So that demonstrator who’s locked himself to the railroad bridge south of the St. Johns? It’s local activist Jonah Majure. And he’s connected himself to the bridge by the neck. From his Facebook page.

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Cops are talking to him.

4:36 pm: And the protestors have begun dropping. It’s pretty unclear what exactly’s happening, but it appears one or two of the hanging demonstrators have been lowered into boats waiting below. According to Greenpeace spokeswoman Mary Nicol, six kayakers were hauled off.

4:24 pm: You’re familiar, no doubt, with that railroad bridge that’s just south of the St Johns? What we’re hearing.

4:08 pm: Rather than just saying there was nothing to share, the various agencies involved in plucking up the 13 demonstrators (none plucked yet) just held a press conference to announce they wouldn’t share anything other than these scintillating facts: They want people to be safe. There are several agencies involved. This is still in progress.

Thanks guys!

The most colorful bit came from Portland Police Bureau spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson, who noted: “I don’t think we’ve every seen anything like this.”

Other tidbits: The Coast Guard has officially closed the Columbia River from Sand Island to Kelley Point, and the Fennica would really like to get going this afternoon.

Meanwhile, this thing has gone global, finding prominent coverage in the New York Times and Guardian and presumably countless other outlets.

“I’m off the water because they chased me off,” says Shelby.

3:40 pm: The crowd is calling the Coast Guard “terrorists.” “Confusion abounds,” says Shelby. It looks like authorities are grabbing at the lines that the danglers have used to connect to one another. An officer from some agency or another just dangled from the bridge and cut one of those lines. It’s all very baroque.

Meanwhile down below:

3:22 pm: It is SO HOT out there on the river. Something like 100 degrees at this point, which KOIN says is the hottest since 2012. Cops are in small clusters on the bridge and looking over, and it appears that Mayor Charlie Hales is on the bridge in his shirtsleeves. The O‘s got a picture of him holding a traffic cone so an officer can better shout down?!?! (Nope. Not the mayor. Does look like the mayor.) There are reports that officers are giving protestors a chance to voluntarily come up, rather than being arrested.

As we pointed out earlier, the mayor’s position here is interesting. He just returned from a dash to the Vatican where the pope and he rubbed elbows on the topic of the terrible threat of climate change. Now he’s helping make way for a ship that’s headed northward to help drill for Arctic oil. Hales’ office has insisted today that’s necessary.

“If you break the law you break the law,” Hales’ spokesman Dana Haynes said earlier today. “You can’t not enforce that law. How every one of us feels about the end goal of stopping Arctic drilling, that’s not the issue that faces Portland today.”

Update, 3:05 pm: According to marinetraffic.com (track the Fennica!), there are three coast guard vessels under the St Johns Bridge. They’re herding kayaks toward the shore, somewhat unsuccessfully.

And it looks like the police are getting ready to begin plucking a couple of the bridge-hangers. Police have already handcuffed and/or expelled the “support team” activists who’d been keeping tabs on the hangers. Says Shelby: “Shit’s going down.”

ORIGINAL POST:

This St Johns Bridge demonstration has been fantastic. And it looks like it might be about over. Cops are getting ready to move in on the demonstrators dangling from the bridge. The Coast Guard has begun swooping “kayaktivists” out of the water, and things might get real interesting. Shelby’s on a boat under the bridge (for now) and says there’s “lots of cops and yelling.” We’ll update! Here’s tweets.

Here’s our past coverage of the issue:

Defeated on the Willamette, Shell Takes the Fight to the Courts

Portland #ShellNO Kayaktivists Plan to Block Departing Ice Breaker

Kayaktivists Prepare: The ShellNO! Protest is Coming to Portland This Weekend

I'm a news reporter for the Mercury. I've spent a lot of the last decade in journalism — covering tragedy and chicanery in the hills of southwest Missouri, politics in Washington, D.C., and other matters...

12 replies on “The Fennica Has Broken Free of Portland, But Not Before So Much Amazing #ShellNoPDX Chaos”

  4. What a complete bag of wasted tools. I’m thinking a good old fashioned dick slapping was in order for that bike lock loser while he was all locked up.

  5. Well, I just spent an extra hour of commute time because of this, wasting about 1 gallon of fuel.
    Yeah, thanks kids.
    I wonder how much fossil fuels have been wasted altogether on this?
    If I in a fuel efficient Honda wasted a gallon, how many more thousands upon thousands fuel have been wasted by other vehicles, cars and trucks, let alone for the cops and firefighters at the scene– and for what?
    “Raising Awareness”?
    Yeah, sure. We all needed another lesson.

  6. The worst part about this is that it’s a total sheep, group think situation just like occupy. A bunch of bored losers who could give two shits about the environment just looking to be a part of something “cool and rebellious” and take a few selfies. Pathetic.

  11. I once proposed the idea of locking all gingers to bridges by their necks using U-Locks, and all I got were confused looks. Now this guy does it and he’s a hero?

    This town has turned into nu-California bullshit.

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