Portland’s May Day marches were loud and mostly peaceful, as reported yesterday by the Tribune. Protesters were agitated and rowdy, but they weren’t violent. Yet, we got pepper sprayed. Some marchers got hit with flashbangs.
The clash with the cops began when marchers tried to take the Burnside Bridge. A wall of bicycle cops blocked the bridgehead and were quickly joined by a van load of police officers in full riot gear. As the protesters approached, many were chanting, “All cops are bastards,” which is rude, yes, but is it reason enough to get pepper sprayed?
Here’s how the afternoon unfolded.
Don’t Shoot Portland marchers started on the Portland State University campus near Smith Memorial Student Union around 2pm and wove through downtown. Here they are getting going:
The marchers stopped in front of the PSU administrative building, said hi to the folks at City Hall, then swarmed the police building, blocking traffic and chanting “Hands up, don’t shoot.”
After that, the group deviated from the planned route. Until then, the group had been allowing organizers (and some barely visible cops) to stop traffic and clear the road. But with the, “Whose streets? Our streets!” chant starting up, the marchers decided to illustrate just whose streets they were.
The cars were confused.
Oh, yeah, I was live-tweeting this the whole time.
The Don’t Shoot group joined up at Shimanski Park with the May Day rally co-organized by Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition for a planned, permitted march … that didn’t exactly go as planned.
Instead of sticking to the parade route, the throng of protesters decided to try and get on the Burnside Bridge. The police were ready. Here they are arriving to block the way:
This is where the mood shifted. The marchers had been LOUD—fantastically so, actually—and rowdy, but they’d stayed focused. Speakers were angry and agitated, but not antagonistic. The leading edge of the protesters challenging the cops at the bridgehead were chanting “All cops are bastards,” which, you know, is on topic but maybe not constructive. But do protesters have to be constructive? I mean, they’re pissed, right? Shouldn’t they be able to yell, even if that yelling is rude? So here’s what happened:
Don’t worry, I only got peripherally splattered. I was fine just few minutes after (as evidenced by my cheerful tweet, shown above). The guy standing next to me got it full in the face. Did he deserve it? I mean, it’s rude to call someone a bastard, I suppose, and no one (even cops, I’m sure) likes having someone’s middle finger all up in their face, but does being rude merit a close range pepper spraying? What about the flash bangs the cops launched into the crowd after that? For what was, as the Tribune reported, a basically peaceful rally, was the use of force justified? What do you think, Merc readers?
Word in the non-white activist community is that Don’t Shoot PDX hijacked a peaceful march which was originally permitted and planned by POC lead groups independent of Don’t Shoot PDX. Many of those groups felt the safety of their children was betrayed by Don’t Shoot’s mostly white PSU student march, which led them alongside hostile anarchists and provocateurs directly into a confrontation with riot police. These groups’ want for solidarity in the march kept them from splintering from Don’t Shoot PDX’s march but in the end only worked to demonize people of color and their organizing efforts in the eyes of the public and the media. From the murmurs around POC organizations, many are hesitant to participate in May Day 2016 and alongside Don’t Shoot PDX.
But look at it from the white students’ perspective: how many days a year do they get to pretend they have real grievances?
Yeah, trying to take a bridge on a unplanned route, to fuck up traffic, ain’t in no way antagonistic, right?
Whose streets?, the marchers, sure, but also the motorists too, dickheads.
I get the sense that a lot of these kids felt just like Shelby’s tweet.
“OOOhhhhh, I’m such a real protester now that I got pepper-sprayed.”
What a joke.
Can something be “peaceful” but also “confrontational”? Cause while this may have been a peaceful march, it certainly was confrontational, at least at times.
As for the incident, I supposed I’d feel better if the cop did absolutely nothing, but it seems like a fairly reasonable use of pepper spray.
Heck yeah, it was justified. Look at that asshole in the skimask with his finger up to a stranger’s face. That’s the mind of a 12th-grader, right there. He had such a boner from being able to do that – he was high on life right then, drunk with fake power. Fuck that guy.