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Alex Zielinski

Good morning, Portland! This morning, we’ll be headed to federal court to see if the feds are following court orders and allowing lawyers into Sheridan Prison. Follow me for updates. Here’s some other news to get your day started:

Guns on Campus: The family of Jason Washington, the man fatally shot by Portland State University campus officers Friday while trying to break up a fight, joined PSU students yesterday to protest his death and call for the university to disarm its police officers. It’s the first shooting since PSU decided to arm its campus police force in 2015.

Same Ol’ Hate: Vancouver, WA alt-righters Patriot Prayer duked it out with Oregon anti-fascist and anarchist groups in downtown Portland Saturday and it went exactly as you’d expect. Eggs and fireworks thrown, dozens injured, some grade-school name-calling, four arrested (for entirely unrelated crimes—who brings meth to a rally?). Portland police officers used flash-bangs and pepper spray to split up the crowd, and eventually deemed the scene a “riot”. Here’s the bigger question: Why do the feds keep allowing Patriot Prayer to rally at Terry Schrunk Plaza (which is federal property)?

Families Belong Together: At least a thousand people turned out to protest Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy Saturday at the North Park Blocks. The peaceful protest concluded after marching to the Southwest Waterfront Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building and joining the group of protesters who’ve been camping out in front of the facility for two weeks.

Fake News: For some unfortunate and disappointing reason, CNN thought the violence at the Patriot Prayer rally was connected to the peaceful Occupy ICE protest (which successfully shuttered the ICE offices for more than a week).

Uptown Squirrel: Thousands of households lost power Sunday following some squirrel mischief.

Child Stabbings: Nine people celebrating a 3-year-old’s birthday at a Boise apartment complex were gravely stabbed by a man Saturday. Six of the victims were children. All of them were recent immigrants in the US. Police have yet to define the man’s motive.

SPORTS DRAMA: LeBron James is leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers again, this time for the Los Angeles Lakers. He’ll be joined by longtime rival, the Indiana Pacers’ Lance Stephenson. DRAMA, COMMENCE. I personally hope this means LeBron will be acting in more films (he was the only reason I enjoyed Trainwreck).

¡Viva México! Mexico has a new president, and he just might be able to stand up to Trump. Left-wing candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador won in a landslide election yesterday, igniting hope in a country that’s felt betrayed by recent leaders.

Sportsball! A series of victorious penalty kicks led to underdog Russia’s unexpected win against Spain in the men’s World Cup Sunday. Already over it? Check in on Mexico’s game against Brazil taking place right now.

Prison Break: A well-known criminal escaped a French prison by helicopter this weekend. Helicopter. What’s more, this is the second extreme jailbreak conducted by Redoine Faid—last time, he used explosives.

Trust No One: Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces 20-year-old groping allegations from a female reporter.

Barbie’s “Career of the Year” is a robotics engineer and I am here for it.

Alex Zielinski is a former News Editor for the Portland Mercury. She's here to tell stories about economic inequities, cops, civil rights, and weird city politics that you should probably be paying attention...

4 replies on “Good Morning, News: Peaceful Protests, “Patriot” Riots, and Sports Drama”

  1. ” Why do the feds keep allowing Patriot Prayer to rally at Terry Schrunk Plaza (which is federal property)?”

    Alex is that a real question?

    “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

    Might be a good indication.

  2. Damn. I wanna watch ‘Trainwreck’ now. I didn’t, because Amy Schumer is kind of becoming less and less of a worthwhile investment, and I’m wondering if there’s some supercut out there of all the scenes with just LeBron and Bill.

  3. Also Sam: in the several years since the Bill of Rights were written, the law on the subject of permitted speech has evolved a bit. If you’re preaching violence, for instance, or are always saying things that somehow always lead to violence being done on the part of your listeners, that’s been recognized for a while as a reason to stifle the first amendment rights of certain groups.

    Why it hasn’t been applied to this particular group of nazis, I’ll never know. Even the time that all those Illinois nazis marched through Skokie, they mostly just wanted to march and be dicks. This time, I think it’s demonstrable that Patriot Prayer actually wants violence to occur, with the only possible alternate explanation being that they’re too dumb to realize what it looks like when you show up to a city with a lot of white supremacist paraphenalia and body armor.

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