When Mayor Charlie Hales and Police Chief Mike Marshman implored anti-Trump demonstrators to stay home Saturday night, they warned that cops would be more aggressive than they’d been during the past three nights’ protests.
You could see that immediately Saturday evening, when protesters predictably ignored the warning and gathered at Pioneer Courthouse Square, and were soon in the street’s blocking MAX traffic. The Portland Police Bureau’s Rapid Response Team was on hand immediately, and would move in periodically to swiftly arrest people who were ignoring warnings to disperse.
Cops are moving in SWIFTLY on people in streets. Truly not playing. pic.twitter.com/eCQ9FEFnNj
— Dirk VanderHart (@dirquez) November 13, 2016
Eventually the demonstration morphed into a march very much like what we’d seen in past nights. There was one notable exception: Far, far more arrests. The PPB announced this afternoon cops had arrested 71 people at last night’s demonstration.
The bulk of those were arrested around 11 pm, near SW Stark and Broadway, cops say. And there were so many of them that a traditional paddy wagon wasn’t good enough. Police called a TriMet bus to transport the crowd to the justice center. All but four were booked into jail. As with past protests, charges are largely for disorderly conduct and interfering with a peace officer.
Cops also say someone tagged up a police SUV at some point early Sunday morning.
There are at least two actions planned for today: A candlelight vigil being called by the group Portland’s Resistance at 4 pm, and a protest event being organized by the group Families for Peaceful Protest at 2 pm. That group says police have asked it to cancel the event, but that it’s moving forward. Hundreds of people have signaled on Facebook that they’ll attend each event.
This is a nice, light-hearted and friendly preview of how Trump’s inevitable conversion of the US into a fascist totalitarian police state will occur (we were already well on our way to it under Obama, but Billary Clinton started it). Laugh hysterically and ridicule me mercilessly now while you still can.
You clowns at the Mercury have no idea how much you fucked up by ignoring DNC corruption and Hillary’s shenanigans at the expense of the one person who could easily have beat Trump, Bernie Sanders. But you will soon learn your lesson. The rest of us will also be as fucked as you, but we won’t forget about your collision. Hide your heads in shame.
Collision = collusion. My phone’s autocorrect misspelled a word so clearly my criticism is completely invalid.