Tuesday, June 2: A crowd of thousands march toward downtown Portland. Blair Stenvick
Due to the dangerous situation and loss of control exhibited by the Portland Police, we have pulled our reporters off the street for the night. It's simply too dangerous for them to be out there right now. We'll continue to monitor the situation and update you tomorrow.
TO RECAP: The evening started out extremely uplifting with an estimated 10,000 people protesting in Portland to end police brutality, many marching across the Burnside Bridge and meeting up with thousands more downtown at Pioneer Square. At the 10 pm hour things went sideways when protesters, marching to the fenced Justice Center were gassed from the front and the rear by police. Our reporters were among the hundreds affected, many of whom were innocent bystanders. The majority of the crowd marched out of town, while roughly 1,000 protesters returned to the Justice Center. After a 30 minute standoff, police claimed that some sort of projectiles were thrown at them, sending them into tear gassing fury, throwing gas canisters at any random grouping that was in range. In short, this was FAR MORE gas than has been used during this series of protests, and under FAR LESS provocation. In short, the Portland Police department lost their shit tonight, and there will be many questions to be answered tomorrow.
Thank you all for joining us tonight, and I especially thank our on-the-ground reporters Alex Zielinski and Blair Stenvick who were insanely brave, even while being gassed by police more than once. If you appreciate their dedication to keeping Portland informed, I hope you will consider donating to keep their work going at the Portland Mercury. They certainly deserve your support. We'll see you in the morning.
UPDATE MIDNIGHT: Hat tips to all my journos still out there at the midnight hour. And I'd like to remind Portland Police to keep your goddamn mitts off journalists!
Our Alex Zielinski is still out on the street—AND HAS BEEN AT THIS FOR THE LAST FIVE DAYS LET'S NOT FORGET—and doing her job.
WELP! I guess we can safely say that the "Nice Dad" the Portland Police was pretending to be has decided he's had enough with home life, and is going to live with his girlfriend.
UPDATE 11:45 PM: Personal note: I would like to be acknowledged for having the forethought to run to the liquor store this afternoon and buy a nice, big bottle of vodka. Thank you for your acknowledgement.
Somebody must have touched the fence:
And here comes the cloud.
What the police say:
(I bet someone touched the fence.)
"Mean Dad" is trying so hard to be nice.
And look what's going on now in Seattle! For once we're equal.
UPDATE 11:30 PM: While this standoff continues, let's check across the Burnside Bridge where our Blair Stenvick has followed a crowd across the river.
Meanwhile... BUT WHAT ABOUT THE FENCE?!?!
UPDATE 11:15 PM: After a brief stopover at Pioneer Square, where speeches and skateboard tricks were made, the crowd is making their way back to the Justice Center.
UPDATE 11 PM: Here's the scene currently in Pioneer Square:
Meanwhile across town....
Probably unrelated.
UPDATE 10:45 PM: It's taking awhile to figure out what's going on downtown. We know that a lot of people have left the downtown core via the Burnside Bridge. Meanwhile factions of protesters have split apart but seem to be drifting back together at Pioneer Square.
It's definitely a place where the cops do NOT want you to be.
A very important point that will be brought up later:
And a new, very different rally in Pioneer Square has begun.
Here's something we'll be asking the department about tomorrow:
UPDATE 10:30 PM: As thousands make their way out of town, a brawl between protesters and police has erupted downtown.
It's chaos.
A good question from Blair:
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