May Day in Portland Doug Brown
It got a little crazy in Portland this afternoon, as a May Day march was declared a riot by Portland police and anarchists went on a vandalism tear in downtown Portland. Broken windows, street fires, vandalized cop cars, armored-up squads of cops setting of flash-bang grenades and making mass arrests—today had it all.
You can check out our live coverage of the day here, and we’ll have more on what went down in the coming days. But here are some of my photographs and video starting from just before the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) announced that the parade’s permit had been cancelled.
An anarchist and a smoke canister Doug Brown
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After some minor vandalism, Portland police announced the “legal” march was over
This guy had a few things to say about that Doug Brown
Cops trailing the anarchists Doug Brown
Walking through smoke Doug Brown
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Getting ready Doug Brown
Police putting on gas masks Doug Brown
An officer with a less-lethal gun Doug Brown
Protesters on the other side of the street Doug Brown
A fire in the middle of the street and this guy’s not pleased Doug Brown
A fire and riot cops Doug Brown
An anarchist talking to the police Doug Brown
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Police trying to clear the street Doug Brown
Police grab photojournalist John Rudoff while he was doing his job Doug Brown
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Police clear downtown Doug Brown
A police officer threatens a journalist with pepper spray Doug Brown
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An overturned dumpster Doug Brown
Running from the police Doug Brown
Police arrest a guy for having a small slingshot Doug Brown
Arrests Doug Brown
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A portland cop telling a National Lawyers Guild legal observer he was being detained Doug Brown
A cop telling a journalist to get out of here, now Doug Brown
A shattered window at city hall Doug Brown
Getting ready to take people to jail Doug Brown
What a bunch of stupid assholes. There’s no coherent message, little to no organization, and nothing but destructive protests rather than constructive messaging beforehand or follow-up after the fact. This is how you simply piss people off in a counterproductive manner, rather than organizing for a real protest with a message to advance a particular cause.
I’m pretty sure the message was “fuck the police, fuck corporate money, and in New Portland, people care more about property than they do human lives”. Pretty coherent message, and predictive of citizens’ responses at this point as well.
I’m not altogether sure it matters though, since people literally do care more about Target’s windows and property value than justice and reforming the murderous police these days.
Step 1: Break a bunch of other people’s shit.
Step 2: ….
Step 3: Police reform!
I’m serious, if that is the message, and this is the way they are choosing to speak it, they can take their police beatings. There are no policy proposals, no other forms of outreach, clearly protesting hasn’t worked given that we have had years of protests about this shit now, and what has changed? Not a goddamn thing except for the people of Portland getting increasingly angry at the childish anarchist protestors, meaning yeah, they are going to start caring more about other stuff, including property, and giving less of a shit that these emotional children who feel entitled to disrupt our lives at ever turn get an ass kicking and eye full of pepper spray from the cops.
After watching this I kind of wish that the cops clubbed some of the masked rioters like baby seals. We have to get out and organize,protest and resist but these anarchist assholes/rioters will destroy any movement.