Update — 8/18, 12 pm:
The Portland Police Bureau (PPB) has identified one of the suspects in the Sunday assaults as 25-year-old Marquise Love. In a morning press release, PPB said that investigators have not been able to locate Love, but there is “probable cause for his arrest.” PPB also noted that the truck driver has been released from the hospital.
“The Portland Police Bureau is taking this assault and other incidents of violence extremely seriously,” said PPB Chief Chuck Lovell in a press statment. “Our detectives continue to investigate this assault as well as other acts of violence directed toward protestors, but we need more than just videos from social media.”
Original Story — 8/17, 5 pm:
Two people were physically assaulted last night near a protest against police brutality in downtown Portland, with at least one sent to the hospital for his injuries. These incidents, all caught on video, were perpetrated by a small group of people who regularly frequent the nightly demonstrations. But longtime organizers with Portland’s protests against racist policing say these individuals are not associated with the main movement—and believe their violence is tarnishing the message of Black Lives Matter.
“We want the public to know that we’re not those folks beating people up and robbing them,” said Danialle James, a community organizer with the group Moms United for Black Lives. “It’s a stain on the moment.”
James has been protesting the death of George Floyd in Portland since May 27, and co-founded Moms United with fellow protester Demetria Hester in late July. The group attracted the support of the national Black Lives Matter movement last week.
James, Hester, and several hundred other protesters were demonstrating near of the Multnomah County Justice Center Sunday night when the assaults took place.
According to multiple witnesses who spoke with the Mercury, the Sunday incident began around 10 pm, when a group of five to ten people began assaulting a woman on the corner of SW Fourth and SW Taylor—about three blocks from the main protest.
Videos taken of the incident show the woman arguing with a group of people on the sidewalk outside 7-11, then someone grabbing her skateboard and backpack. She is hit and shoved by several others in the group. It’s not immediately clear what initiated this assault.
Other videos capture a man attempting to deescalate the assault, but being told to leave. He eventually drives away, only to crash his truck near the intersection of SW Broadway and SW Taylor. Videos recorded after this crash show the same group of people pulling the man away from his truck and shoving him onto the ground. Another clip shows a man in a “security” vest violently kicking the truck driver in the head, appearing to knock him unconscious. That driver was treated by volunteer medics and eventually taken to a hospital for his injures.
Elisha Warren, another organizer with Moms United, said she saw the truck driving recklessly in circles around the main demonstration earlier in the evening, and was worried he was trying to intentionally hit protesters. It wasn’t a baseless concern: Two weeks prior, another truck driver accelerated toward a crowd of protesters during a rally in North Portland, barely missing the group.
Yet Warren still condemns the aggressive attack on the driver.
“We don’t stand for what’s going on downtown,” said Warren, referencing the numerous attacks by this specific group of protest attendees. “The violence with folks who are not with Black Lives Matter are taking away from the narrative.”
This wasn’t first time James and other longtime organizers had heard that this group of protest attendees had assaulted people—in the past, they’ve had to physically intervene or call 911 to stop these violent fights. James said she and other activists have tried to engage with the group’s leaders about how their violence harms the community, but they aren’t receptive.
Now, after watching right-wing activists pin Sunday night’s violence on the Black Lives Matter movement, organizers with Moms United are worried that the actions of a few will undermine their months of non-violent activism.
“That violence—that’s not what this is about. This is falling back on us, when we had nothing to do with it,” said James. “They’re out there assaulting people, and they’re expecting to be protected by supporters of Black Lives Matter… It’s embarrassing. It’s shameful.”
Several protesters called 911 last night to report the assaults. In a Monday press release, the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) said officers are actively investigating both assaults.
Cops murdering Black people is never a stain on law enforcement as a whole.
White mass murderers are never a stain on white people as a whole.
One incident does not create a stain on an entire movement. One incident is one incident and while that single incident should be condemned it does not create a stain on entire movement.
typo somewhere, title doesn’t match text; regardless, not unlikely that provacateurs are involved, antifa makes it easy for others to impersonate them for less altruistic motives, for reference, look up the Minneapolis ‘umbrella man’.
So they create them, then disavow them? Well if they know their names and want them held accountable, let’s see some actual action by calling the cops and giving them up. Useless platitudes don’t fix a cracked skull, or contribute to holding violent thugs accountable.
By the way, I’m holding onto a screen shot of the “TonyVang” comment above as an example for people of the kind of individuals burning Portland down because they have opinions about stuff. Keep it classy Tony.
“Volunteer medics”? Those idiots were rolling the victim’s limp body in the street, ignoring his possible spine injury, and dousing his head with water while screaming “racist.” Medical science has sure taken a strange turn.
If you watch the live stream Demetria Hester, the BLM Wall of moms Organizer, was there with them.
Poor fact reporting here – “Elisha Warren, another organizer with Moms United…..It wasn’t a baseless concern: Two weeks prior, another truck driver accelerated toward a crowd of protesters during a rally in North Portland, barely missing the group.” There is an extended video of the one referenced and it clearly shows a pickup trying to be stopped and cut off by a motorcycle which was thrown in front. When protesters converged and hit the car, the driver speed off with the motorcycle underneath. Judging by what happened to the latest driver he did the correct thing to save his life.
“If you’re dumb enough to run your mouth at the protesters you’re going to get what’s coming to you.”
Hmm, that sounds familiar…
From “In the Garden of Beasts” by Erik Larson
“DODD HAD BEEN HOME little more than twenty-four hours when another attack occurred against an American. The victim this time was a thirty-year-old surgeon named Daniel Mulvihill, who lived in Manhattan but practiced at a hospital on Long Island and was in Berlin to study the techniques of a famed German surgeon. Messersmith, in a dispatch on the incident, said Mulvihill was “an American citizen of a fine type and is not a Jew.”
The attack followed a pattern that would become all too familiar: On the evening of Tuesday, August 15, Mulvihill was walking along Unter den Linden on his way to a drugstore when he stopped to watch the approach of a parade of uniformed SA members. The Storm Troopers were reenacting for a propaganda film the great march through the Brandenburg Gate that took place on the night of Hitler’s appointment as chancellor. Mulvihill looked on, unaware that one SA man had left the parade and was headed his way. The trooper, without preamble, struck Mulvihill hard on the left side of his head, then calmly rejoined the parade. Bystanders told the stunned surgeon that the assault likely had occurred because of Mulvihill’s failure to offer the Hitler salute as the parade passed.”
OTOH, protesters were potentially legit threatened by dude in truck, in that case he may have got what he had coming? if u weren’t there u prob shouldn’t infer too much from what u read on teh interwebs (or the PPB spin on it). Motorists can get crazy dangerous with their vehicles if they are delayed or otherwise object to your presence, I’ve seen it myself right here in PDX on group bike rides and at the 2003 protests against the 2nd Iraq war.
Comment #9 offers a 180 pivot which implies protesters are the ‘nazis’, LOL!