Tactics and Teargas

Inspired by past resistance movements, Portland has at different points adopted a variety of tactics used to achieve protest objectives. Broken windows, graffiti, and nearly nightly dumpster fires has lead the perception that Portland is in ruin. But if you dig deeper than the snappy headlines you’ll find the real destruction that’s facing the city and local ecosystem is due to the unprecedented amount of poison gas munitions used in an American city. 

Host: Robert Evans

Executive Producer: Sophie Lichterman

Writers: Bea Lake, Donovan Smith, Elaine Kinchen, Garrison Davis, Robert Evans

Narration: Bea Lake, Donovan Smith, Elaine Kinchen, Garrison Davis, Robert Evans

Editor: Chris Szczech

Music: Crooked Ways by Propaganda

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Business declared Riley Broom Groom broken out windows of vultable

(00:05):
businesses in alloy in district members and also drawn projectile
to believe must impiately leave the area bail You're to
adhere to this order MA subtrict due to a roust,
citation or crowd control agents, including but not limited to

(00:25):
tread and or impact weapon, leave the area immediately. A
phrase you'll hear thrown around often at Portland protests is
diversity of tactics. It's a civil revolt organizing principle that
dates back to at least around the nineteen sixties and
was popularized by people like Malcolm X. Diversity of tactics

(00:46):
emphasizes making periodic use of force for defensive or disruptive purposes,
stepping beyond the limits of non violence, but also stopping
short of militarization. It's about promoting solidarity between those who
practice peaceful protests and those who are more militant. As
Malcolm X put it, our people have made the mistake
of confusing the methods with the objectives. As long as

(01:07):
we agree on objectives, we should never fall out with
each other just because we believe in different methods or
tactics or strategy to reach a common goal, Taking their
cues from Malcolm X. Younger and more militant Black liberation
activists increasingly supported this approach, with Gloria Richardson of the
Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee declaring in nineteen sixty four
that the federal government would only be compelled to intervene

(01:30):
on behalf of integration only when matters approached the level
of insurrection. While support for a diversity of tactics was
foundational to struggles throughout the later half of the twentieth century,
the phrase itself was popularized by the protests against the
Republican National Convention and Saint Paul Minnesota. In two thousand eight,
a broad coalition of labor, anti war, anti globalization, liberal

(01:52):
and leftist groups drafted the Saint Paul Principles, which read
as follows. Number one, our solidarity will be based on
respect for a diversity of tactics and the plans of
other groups. Number two. The actions and tactics used will
be organized to maintain a separation of time or space.
Number Three. Any debates or criticisms will stay internal to

(02:13):
the movement, avoiding any public or media denunciations of fellow
activists and events. And number four, we oppose any state
repression of dissent, including surveillance, infiltration, disruption, and violence. We
agree not to assist law enforcement actions against activists and others.
The principles were a rough compromise, the common ground that
most of the ten thousand protesters who gathered in the

(02:34):
Twin Cities to face down heavily militarized police could agree to.
Twelve years later, spurred on by the murder of George
Floyd in Minneapolis, the national Uprising of would grapple with
those same debates over acceptable and useful tactics. They would
find no easy answers. Here's Garrison in Portland. There has

(03:00):
been even further distinction between peaceful protests i long preplanned
marches with speeches and no property damage, and non violent
protests where people aren't physically harmed but protesters do engage
in property destruction for various reasons. It's often said when
these different types of protests can happen simultaneously, both a big,

(03:20):
more liberal one and a smaller radical one, that's when
you can get the most reforms. As the Wilife explains here.
Note the audio is re dubbed. I do think that's important,
Like if if we have to work inside the system
and are not able to outright destroy it, that is
definitely an important aspect because it gives it basically gives
the people in charge in this case, will say Ted Wheeler,

(03:43):
there are two options you can go with in his mind,
the violent rioters wanting to destroy everything, or you can
go with the with the peaceful ones. He's left with
two options, and he's always going to take like the
peaceful liberal marches. And at the end of the day,
it's not nothing because they're still out there, demand of
school resource officers out of schools, the gang Task Force gone,

(04:03):
and so it basically makes them choose. And I guess
if we're working in the system, any progress is good.
Despite police and the media's insistence, vandalism and violence are
not the same thing, but there still is a public
perception that anarchists, protesters, and rioters are quote destroying the
city unquote. Tristan notes how violence and vandalism are misconstruted

(04:26):
and exaggerated in press coverage. I think the kind of
the most damaging thing or like the worst kind of
counter um like narrative is basically just around the like
vandalism that goes on and like uh really kind of
blowing that out of proportion and and and trying to

(04:49):
act like that is going to uh like you know, ok,
it's distracted, Like there's this you know, narrative going around
that that's like distracting from the real purpose of the
move man that it's you know, like white anarchists like
trying to take the the attention away from like black

(05:09):
folks and as usually being pushed like really conservative black people,
and like you know, the kind of people who they
have a lot of influence with. You know, they'll see
like mainstream like in the VCP here in Portland, who
has always been tight with the mayor's office, really pushing
that narrative hard, and lots of other folks you know,
coming up to back them up. Yeah. So I guess

(05:30):
one thing that I've also seen is that there's this
conflation of like you know, they'll say like downtown is
deserted because of these protests because all the violence, but
downtown is deserted because of the pandemic and also despite
the plague and a record number of businesses shutting down
due to COVID downtown Portland is unfortunately quite active at

(05:51):
the moment. It is in fact not destroyed nor taking
enough appropriate COVID precautions, you know, And that's not like
that's like the most disingenuous thing anyone could possibly say.
And it's so it seems so patently obvious that it's like,
you know, like a red herring, but then people are
still like buying into it and to a certain degreer,

(06:13):
like echoing that sentiment, and it's just this is not
the case. And it's like and there's also this like
desire for for them to like they kind of say
that it's all white anarchists, but there's no way to
that for you to prove that because most of the
people who are doing this show are all blocked up.
And it's like so there's also this like kind of

(06:35):
subtext that they what they really want for these people,
They want to know who these people are, you know,
partially to like like you know, gratify themselves are trying
to be right, but also just so the fucking cops
from now them. You know. It's like it's like undercurrent
of like respectability, like if you know, they really cared,
they would like show their faces or something like that,

(06:55):
like I don't know. The vast majority of Portland protesters
do not partake in any political violence or even vandalism,
even at the riots that end in destruction and violence.
At almost every one of these protests, physical violence is
started and further escalated by law enforcement. Entire crowds get
punished for the actions of a few individuals. The more

(07:17):
rare alternative to this is quote unquote targeted arrests, that,
despite its name, are often not actually targeted at specific
individuals and instead just end up targeting people wearing black
clothes and those that don't run away fast enough from
riot cops. The people arrested in these targeted arrests often
get charged with a mix of small misdemeanors and sometimes

(07:38):
agregious felonies, most of which end up getting dropped due
to lack of evidence. When the arrests are specifically targeted,
it's usually for such quote unquote crimes as standing and
protesting on the driveway of the Ice building at one am.
The validity of property destruction has faced a lot of
criticism from pundance, politicians and even many protesters. For the

(08:01):
summer of twenty there was actually very little property destruction
save for the first riot night, as people were mostly
trying to repeat the occupy the areas around boarded up
police buildings. But as the summer turned into fall and
tactics evolved alongside the smaller crowd sizes, broken windows became
more common. Critics say that it is not strategic because

(08:23):
it does not help grow the movement, gain public support,
or by itself be enough pressure for instituting change. That
much is arguably true, but that assumes those were the
goals of the action in the first place, which is
usually not true. In a recent interview, local political consultant
and former activist Gregory McKelvey said this about the purpose

(08:44):
of vandalism such as breaking windows. Quote, Honestly, I think
in some cases the goal has been explicitly revenge for
night after night of tear gas beatings, disparate policing and
PPBS protection of the ice detention centers. However, again, we
must put ourselves in the minds as someone who probably
rightfully believes the world is ending, or at a minimum

(09:06):
is on the brink of being unrecognizable with incredible amounts
of death, pain, and climate chaos. If the world is ending,
some people are going to act like it. It's amazing
to me that liberal Democrats really do believe that we
are on the brink of something like armageddon and then
are shocked that some people behave like it. What did
you picture armageddon to look like? Public testimony unquote vandalism

(09:30):
like graffitia, breaking windows also serves as a demanding of attention,
while also symbolizing a direct attack on racism, class divides, capitalism,
or this datus quote itself. For years, people have tried
just asking nicely. Over the summer here in Portland, there
were thousands of people peacefully demanding a fifty million dollar
budget cut from p PPS two hundred and forty five

(09:52):
million dollar budget to then reinvesting community services. The minus
fifty million would bring the police budget down closer to
their twenty sixteen budget of only a hundred and ninety million.
Other demands include wholly abolishing and replacing the Portland Police Bureau,
dropping all charges for civil rights protesters, and that Mayor
Ted Wheeler resigned with none of those demands meant, and

(10:15):
politicians all but ignoring the peaceful demonstrations. People are angry,
so windows get broken, and this seems to be the
only thing that gets attention anymore and keeps the dialogue
about police violence active. Here's Tristan again. That's like I said,
I definitely feel like that kind of like vandalism should

(10:36):
be engaged with and like, uh, let's say a productive
kind of way. I don't necessarily think it's wrong, but
if it if you can't see, yeah, this is this
is a hard depart because I mean, it's totally valid

(10:58):
to be able to speak madness smash it. And I
guess in terms of like small businesses, um, I mean,
well I guess, okay, so one way that it's if
I think fully justified even if it is like a
small business, if they're like cop friendly, if they're like
cop adjacent, and like if they got like a Blue

(11:20):
Lives matter of fighting the window, like gloves off, I
don't give a ship. But you know, if it's just
like a random business, like probably don't you know, because
I mean, the cops are gonna they're gonna come at
you anyway, you know, whether you like break a window

(11:41):
or like you know, burn a cop car, right, they're
gonna arrest you. And they're probably arrest you even if
you don't do that. And so it's really just a
matter of like, which of those two acts is actually
going to like materially deprived the police of the ability
need commit for Here's another quote from Gregory in his

(12:04):
recent interview at the will Emit Week quote for generations
like mine and the one after. Gregory is in his
late twenties. By the way, we have been told our
entire lives that the world is about to end if
nothing is done immediately, and that all of the evils
of our world, climate, chaos, racism, the ills of capitalism,
and more are all inexplicably linked. In my mind and

(12:25):
in the minds of protesters, these things are objectively true.
So if the young person has told the world is
ending and then told to sign up to testify or
go vote, that does not meet the urgency of the moment.
Destruction is a natural reaction to feeling desperate, helpless, and
an imminent doom. The solution to all this would involve

(12:45):
actually addressing the legitimate issues that are killing us all
with the urgency that's necessary. The politicians who are acting
like everything is fine as the world literally burns, or
say they care about these issues but don't actually do
anything to fundamentally to fix them are only making the
problems worse and people's desperation worse. And then when both

(13:06):
liberals and conservatives alike make more of a fuss about
a broken Starbucks window than the literally hundreds of people
beaten and gassed in the streets by the cops afterwards,
that only further proves the protesters point. We pro it

(13:35):
would be remiss to talk about tactics without mentioning the
influence Hong Kong's protests have had on the Portland Uprising
and BLM protests in general. The militant protests in Hong
Kong sent shock waves across the world months before the
COVID pandemic. Hong Kong protesters used tennis, rackets and umbrellas
to deflect police projectiles, and traffic cones and water bottles

(13:58):
to contain and diffused here gas grenades. All of these
tactics were adapted at various points throughout the Portland protests.
At a PPB press conference back in July, the Deputy
Chief featured an infographic describing the different rules protesters took
up in the Hong Kong uprising. P PB also tweeted
out the graphs saying, quote, we have seen all of

(14:19):
this demonstrations in Portland, unquote knowingly or unknowingly, the PPB
had aligned themselves with the Hong Kong police and their
crackdown on the Hong Kong protests, arguably the most widely
accepted and praise protest movement of the last decade prior
to the George Floyd protests. Here's Deputy Chief Chris Davis
introducing the graphic at his July eight press conference. So

(14:42):
now I want to talk just a little bit about
some of the in in broader terms, some of the
tactics that we're saying. We'll make this available as a
PDF for you. This is not sacred information here. This
we got this off the internet. Um, this picture popped
up a lot on social media and on the internet
right as events began. I'm not sure exactly what the

(15:05):
origin of this is. We're still working on trying to
figure this out. But this is not our diagram. We
got this off of off of the internet. The graphic
that he showed was originally based on the Hong Kong
protests and designed to assist protesters. It outlines the anatomy
of a typical protest laying out the different protest rules
that people can take on to achieve their goals. It's

(15:26):
important to note that one person doesn't need to be
stuck with a single purpose for one day. The rules
people take up and the actions they do can be
semi fluid. The graphic gave each of these rules kind
of silly names and well designed based on a different struggle.
Each of these rules was represented in some form in Portland. First,
our support rules that people can do from home if

(15:48):
they are unable to attend in person. These include graphic
designers who make posters, banners, and infographics, and people who
work online comms listening to police scanners and signaled usting
information about police activity and location from on the ground
sources and then distributing the information via apps like Telegram,
Signal and Twitter. Moving on to at the actual protest

(16:11):
in the back, barricaders people who build barricades out of
usually found objects. In Portland, we've seen these have two
main purposes. One to help prevent vehicular attacks on the
crowd and too quickly erect obstacles as police are chasing
the crowd to hopefully slow the police down. Up Next,
medics and people who help with tear gas or pepper

(16:33):
spray exposure. Medics all have different skill ranges, and in
Portland have had to deal with minor medical issues like
tear gas, but also broken bones, head trauma, seizures, and
gunshot wounds. They often stay towards the back of a
protest to both have a safe place for treatment and
in cases where an ambiliance has to be called in
closer to the middle. We have people that were playfully

(16:55):
referred to in the Hong Kong graphic as fire squads
and range soldiers. Fire squads are protesters who used water
and traffic cones to suppress and extinguished tear gas canisters.
Portland police even began collecting and confiscating city traffic cones
so that they wouldn't be used this way. Another anti
tier gas measure we've seen is simply heat resistant gloves

(17:16):
used to chuck tear gas back at cops or away
from crowds. Hockey sticks and lacrosse sticks have also been
used to relocate tear gas canisters. During the Fed War,
this group also came to include people with leafblowers who
did a really good job at keeping gas at bay.
Range soldiers are protesters who throw water bottles, paint, balloons,
and other random trash to help inhibit police from advancing

(17:38):
beside them are light mages and fire mages. Light mages
use lasers and flashlights to obstruct surveillance cameras, drones, and
stop police from being able to aim and identify protesters.
While effective when used in the large numbers seen in
the Hong Kong protests, isolated lasers did very little to
obscure cameras or disrupt police surveillance, although the FEDS and

(18:01):
PPB officers did report some ice strain due to the
laser targeting. Portland police have even described being quote unquote
struck with objects including lasers. For example here in this
audio courtesy of local street reporter Jasper Florence, jets, models,

(18:26):
borders and lasers. These objects are hard and traveling at
high rates of speed. With these strike officers inter believed
to be coming up shots. Fire mages are protesters who
are prepared to set fires. Often these are two barricades
and dumpsters. Although Portland's months of protests saw extensive use
of fireworks and at least four molotov cocktails, half of

(18:50):
which actually hit fellow protesters, Thankfully, no one was permanently
injured by Molotov's in Portland during now closer to the
front piece the protesters who make up the bulk of
any marcher action and could also include people who don't
want to fight but join hand in hand with the
front liners and conservist human shields. During the fight with

(19:11):
the federal forces, thousands of Portlanders made up of the
peaceful crowds, while the Wall of Moms acted as a frontline,
often protecting people who were throwing tear gas canisters back
at the Feds. Another role showcased on the graphic is
what's referred to as a flag bearer. Their job is
to signal and warn when riot police are approaching. In
Hong Kong this was done via flags and signs, and

(19:33):
in Portland this was done by someone with a sports whistle. Then,
of course we have front liners people up at the front,
some ready to take various direct action and others with
umbrellas to guard against projectiles and cameras. And then at
the very front, shield soldiers or shield bearers with shields
made out of foam would or sometimes umbrellas. In July,

(19:55):
Portland got pretty famous for its shield wall. But like
everything else, needs to be a tactic that's carefully applied
under certain conditions, or it can actually be a hindrance.
In theory, shield walls serve two main purposes to deflect
against projectiles and offer a first line of defense from
charging enemies or people attacking with batons. Shields are effective

(20:16):
at stop immunition fire, but when facing bullrushes, shields are
grabbed by police and used to gain leverage on protesters
to push them onto the ground or destabilize them so
they can be attacked and arrested. One element of a
truly effective shield wall, whether you're advancing or simply holding
your ground, is people behind the shield wall throwing projectiles,
because often merely a shield wall alone isn't enough to

(20:39):
deter people, which is why when law enforcement brings out
their shields, they also have people behind them shooting grenades
to your gas at pepper balls. Another advantage of the
shield wall projectile combo is that shields can be used
to visually obstruct the police from seeing who is throwing objects,
making them targeted arrests more difficult. But you better be

(21:00):
confident in your throw or you might hit your friends.
Although even having a shield in the first place makes
you more of a target for arrests, and if you
touch an officer with your shield, let's say, by an
officer charging directly at you at full speed, you can
get charged with assaulting a police officer. Probably the most
effective shield wall we've seen in Portland was not used

(21:21):
against the PPB or the Feds, but the Proud Boys
and other street fascists. On August two, all these different
elements came together in a rare instance, a strong, tight,
interlocking network of shields with support from behind, enough to
stop incoming attackers and folks behind the wall throwing rocks,
water bottles, and fireworks. Altogether, it was enough to break

(21:43):
the far rights more disorganized and individualistic shield wall. And also,
of course, the Proud Boys don't have arresting powers, so
people are more free to push back with their shields.
Other consideration for shields depend on what your objective is
and what tactics do you use to achieve that objective.
In the fall, as crowds thinned and protests began to
move faster, the large, bulky shields were largely abandoned by

(22:06):
some protesters in favor of umbrellas. Shields can be heavy
and awkward to move with. Plus there's getting the shield
to the action, carrying it around, and then figuring out
what you want to do with it afterwards. These are
all added considerations, particularly if you want to leave a
protest more covertly. As great as it may be to
have a wooden, foam or plastic shield in the moment

(22:28):
as you're deflecting grenades or pushing off someone, it may
not be worth all those extra tradeoffs, especially if an
umbrella can suffice in your immunitions shielding needs. Umbrellas are

(22:54):
more of a multi use tool that can adapt to
different situations and even be concealable, especially collapsible ones. While
not as sturdy as a shield, umbrellas are generally less
suspicious than huge wooden shields. A reinforced banner can also
provide some protection from unitions while also sending out a message. However,
some places have legal restrictions on what banners can be

(23:16):
made of. Throughout the summer, nightly actions focused on direct confrontation,
with police often returning to repeatedly confront the same riot line.
By August, while protest tactics remained largely unchanged, the Portland
police tactics began to change PPB alternated between knights of
brutal bul rushes and physical violence with only few arrests,

(23:36):
and other knights where they conducted mass arrests of entire crowds.
There are By fall, smaller crowd sizes and less frequent

(24:08):
actions required protesters to change up tactics as well. Repeated
direct confrontation with riot lines was in many ways a
habit picked up from the days of mass mobilization at
the fence, and such confrontations took arrests for granted. Protesters
were being treated as disposable. When Portland had been the
focus of national news, facing down police lines reliably generated

(24:30):
front page coverage of police brutality, But by early fall
Portland was no longer the focus of attention, and over
time the shock and awe of footage showcasing police brutality
wears off, even as people keep getting hurt. By October,
nighttime actions began to involve smaller crowds of people on
Black Block smashing the windows of banks, real estate firms,

(24:52):
and Starbucks coffee shops and then attempting to vanish into
the night. These actions raised familiar objections from the more
moderate sectors of the movement. And fit the right wing
narrative of the destructive antifa boogeyman. But as we touched
on earlier, these actions were not to gain good optics,
but instead to vent frustration that the previous demands for
change had not been met and to create an economic

(25:14):
cost for the city in maintaining the status quo. These
marches echoed the black block snake marches of the nineties
anti globalization movement, and to a lesser extent, the b
water mantra of the Hong Kong protests. Though in Hong
Kong crowds routinely targeted civil infrastructure, this shift in tactics
resulted in less arrests on average. The smaller crowd size

(25:35):
made the diverse rules the larger demonstrations impossible, and the
prevalence of vandalism meant that those who were arrested could
face some harsher charges. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has admitted
to the difficulty of combating such attack and disappear actions, saying, quote,
they pop up wearing black from head to toe, They
go down streets relatively quickly, then they disappear into the wind.

(25:58):
Those tactics have evolved to agree where we now find
the law enforcement tools we have in place are dated.

(26:20):
Since the summer of seventeen, the image of black clad
Antifa militants has loomed large in the nation's imagination. The garb,
which Wheeler describes as black from head to toe, is
of course black. Block counter surveillance tactic, which originated in
Europe in the nineteen eighties and was first popularized in
the United States during the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. Traditionally,

(26:45):
block serves to protect the identity of individuals involved in
militant action, and people in block provide a defensive front
line in larger protests, specifically in confrontations with police and
the far right. Theoretically, blocks should make it difficult to
identify a wars gender, race, and age. This has led
to activists and block being glossed over as young white anarchists,

(27:07):
which Costa takes issues with people keep hearing that and
believing in it does kiss off some people of color
to hear that, but it's not true. There are there's
plenty of people of color that are in block, and
there's plenty of people in color. I would say the
only people that are the main people that whose ideas

(27:28):
are listened to are people of color. Given the prevalence
of both CCTV and phone cameras in protest settings, even
the small details can be uniquely identifying. At a Seattle made,
a action in one activist was ultimately identified by his shoes.
As such, modern block often includes removing logos and other
recognizable elements from clothing. This also means that moral patches

(27:52):
or more tactical looking gear can also be used to
identify the wear. Block is a tactic, not an organization,
uniform or identity. Here's an indigenous participant in the Wall
of Moms describing how she shifted from black block as
the protests continued. Yeah, I show up in block. I
just like started just I just went out with like
a shirt and a yellow shirt and some like black pants.

(28:14):
And now I'm like cool block, like with everything. I
have a bulletproof stuff I was provided to me. Um. Yeah, so,
and transition has been crazy just a small amount of
lens yeah so. Um It's just I'm really big on

(28:36):
being autonomous, um and not really having any leaders or
things like that, and um, as I just want to
be another face in the crowd. I don't and I
don't I want to be unrecognizable. UM, so I think
that like that's by block block is so important, and

(28:58):
also don't want to be targeted UM, and I want
to be able to like protect other people around me.
It's my responsibility to make sure that, UM, I am
unrecognizable to like my other protesters and my friends, because
if something happens to me, um, you know, one wrong

(29:18):
move or getting docks or something like that can really
affect everyone around me. So that's why it was really
important for me to kind of transition into a block block. UM.
I've just been seeing so many of my friends and
comrades just kind of like getting docs, um, just being

(29:39):
recognized by like small things, even if they're in block blox.
So UM, it's just it's I just feel like it's
my responsibility. If I'm going to be out there, then
I need to be um like unnoticeable or unrecognizable. For
obvious reasons, block is only protective in groups and draws
the attention of law enforce mint. Another aspect of wearing

(30:01):
block is bringing extra clothes and figuring out when and
where you should take off your black block or d block,
as you probably don't want to get snatched up and
arrested while leaving. In action in Portland on January one,
people were arrested on a sidewalk after a protest many
blocks away just because they were still wearing black block

(30:22):
and in doing so much the supposed description of people
who vandalized a building I also wearing black clothes. Lots
of people actually wear normal clothes under their block, making
d blocking a little easier, but people still need to
choose a time and discrete place to take off their
black outer garments. Besides shields, umbrellas and block, the other
gear people have acquired and brought to the protests also

(30:45):
helped set Portland apart. James from Portland Action Medics describes
how the gear their organization provided mirror the evolution of
the movement. The summer got really really wild and um,
you know, first we we we had respirators, some of
us who are more seasoned protestmetics. Um, but they weren't

(31:07):
widely used because the thing about tear gases, like if
there's just a little bit of it, you can just
walk away and like it will burn your eyes, but
like if you just go down wind or upwind, but
it's fine most of the time. But that's not true
if they're using extraordinary quantities of it such that entire
parks are just full of gas. Right. UM. So we

(31:30):
went from the situation where UM, respirators were kind of
this niche like gear head thing to an absolute necessity,
basically overnight. UM. And then we learned a lot about
what kind of cartridges filter out COVID versus what kind
of cartridges filter out tear gas, and how to combine

(31:51):
them with each other. And then we were like making
little like tear gas canister snack packs for people that
are like these sandwich bags contain both together and you
should just plug them right in. We preassembled them for you.
Here's your gas mask. And then I was like, well,
what if we get full face gas masks that have
included ice shields. Um, that should probably happen because we're

(32:13):
in a pandemic. Portland Action Metics and others distributed hundreds
of respirators and began using three D printers to make
gas masks inserts for eyeglasses, as glasses are notoriously incompatible
with full face masks. As police violence continued and violence
from the far right escalated, James says, additional gear became necessary.
I think it has mostly been in response to um

(32:38):
far right fighters coming into Portland that we have really
been um a lot more worried about gunshots intentionally being
fired at people, potentially in a mass way. Um. You know,
like all police come with guns and so that's always
a possibility. But like we have yet. We saw some

(32:59):
brandnshing of firearms at people from the Feds over the summer,
but we have yet to my knowledge to see police
fire live rounds on protesters. Um. But the far right
like constantly run the round of the internet saying they're
going to shoot us just every day. And so you know,

(33:21):
depending on how seriously take um, it's reasonable to prepare
for sutras thing and so um, especially over the summer
as the rhetoric from the far right increased in extremeness. UM.
Plus the I mean basically, like someone's firing projectiles at

(33:42):
crowd inscriminately, then it makes sense to wear a helmet NFS,
regardless of who those people are. UM, And it's hard
to distincue it doesn't matter whether it's a cop or
a fascist that is not wearing uniform doing that, right. Um.
So there's that like throughout the summer, or people were
like I need ballistics. I need heavier ballistics. I need

(34:03):
a helmet, I need a better helmet. I need goggles.
I need better goggles. I need shadow proof goggles because
we've got seeing people just get really badly fucked up
by projectiles. Um, so there was that. But then yes,
specifically when it comes to gunshot wounds, we did a
lot of preparations, especially binding out to the election, frankly,
because the rhetoric about what people wanted to do was

(34:26):
really scary, and it's it's always impossible basically to tell
how seriously to take these people. Other necessary gear is
ear protection for flash bangs. This can be little film
ear plugs or more bulky noise canceling headphones. Air protection
became very important during the Fed War, as flash banks
from the Feds are way more powerful and damaging than

(34:47):
the ones Portland police use. Here's Donovan Smith tear gas.
It was used almost every night and the more than
one days of protests in Portland, both by local police
and then repped up again during the federal occupation. But

(35:08):
what exactly was this so called gas that was filling
the streets of Portland each night anyways? Well, turns out
it's a wartime chemical band. By the nine Geneva Convention
following the First World War, a protocol and nixing the
use of poisonous gases during warfare was adopted, including some
lethal compounds like chlorine and hydrogen gas. And while its

(35:31):
name sounds like something that would make you feel similar
to cutting up onions at dinner, a deeper look into
its true effects began to open up a much clearer
picture on why it's been banned as a tool of
warfare for decades. Turns out, tear gas isn't even a
gas at all. It's sort of a chemical explosion, one
where a chemical powder gets heated up really quick and

(35:53):
mixed with the solvent and finally released as an aerosaw
and waila tear gas. It's sole purpose from there is
to induce pain. Dr Anita Randolph explains its effects here.
She let a research paper on the effects of tear gas,
commissioned by Don't Shoot Portland's publish in late June, just
weeks after the uprisings begin. Tear gas is actually a

(36:15):
solid um, that's why they're packed in that canister um.
So there's a few chemical reactions that have to happen
to convert it to a gas like substance. So when
you're out there and you're getting tear gas, you know,
it's kind of like this white mist or white powder everywhere. Um.
And that's because it has to be heated up to

(36:37):
be able to um be dispersed, right, and then once
it disperse, you have to zig and then it just
allows it to spread over a larger radius. I think
in the paper UM, from our research, we showed that
one canister tear gas can reach like a four squared radius,
which is like a one loop around a track, which

(36:59):
is law cards right, because once you stretch it out,
that's a that's a lot of areas that it can cover. Um.
And it's also like very potent to penetrate glass. Right.
So that's why people were dressing in layers too. Right.
Even me, I was like, oh man, when I learned that,
I was like dressing in layers, you know, people getting
tear gas or like shedding layers outside because it just

(37:19):
it just goes through and it just wants it's on
your skin, especially when you're sweating and those glands are open.
It's just very painful. UM. I can honestly say I
don't I don't. I'm not too motivated to get tear gass.
The pain isn't just exclusive to humans. Similar reactions are
caused in animals too, even causing death at certain levels

(37:40):
of the exposure. A twenty nineteen protests in Hong Kong
saw a nearby veterinary clinic forced to evacuate all its
feline patients after police began shooting the so called riot
control agents into the crowd of nearby demonstrators. Not all
the cats could be moved in time, though in one case,
an eighteen month year old cat reportedly began clawing at

(38:01):
its eyes after inhaling the gas. While there's little documentation
on how tear gas affected the critters of Portland's they
certainly wore a feature of the protests, with one standout
being a three hundred and fifty pound llama named Caesar.
His owner, a Central Oregan man, says he bought Caesar
to the demonstrations to boost morale and would quickly depart

(38:22):
with him when munitions began sounding off. And while Caesar
went unscathed, we cannot say the same with certainty for
all our other furry friends. Another possible victim of Portland's
bouts of chemical warfare was one of the city's pride
and joys its environment. Early in the protests, concerned eyes
turned towards the Lambt River, the de facto divider between

(38:44):
the city's east and west side. The thirteenth largest north
flowing river in the United States, The will LAMTT also
shares the distinction of being a Superfund site, meaning it's
been pegged by the FEDS as one of the most
toxic sites in the entire country and not so distant
relic of the heavy industrial activity, particularly along a ten

(39:04):
mile stretch spanning from the Burnside Bridge to Sylvie's Island
and short the bollamt is no stranger to abuse, but
some began to wonder if all the cs gas and
pepper spray runoff was furthering those harms as clean up
crewise powerwashed the residue into storm drains leading to the river.
The city's Bureau of Environmental Services began vacuuming tear gas

(39:27):
residue from the drains surrounding the downtown Justice Center in
August during the FED occupation to prevent any toxic carms.
But despite a wealth of research on the effects of
tear gas, little seemed to be known on both its
short and long term effects on the environment, so the
move came as a bit of a preventative shot in
the dark. According to the Bureau. At the very least,

(39:51):
the gas was an illegal discharge as no other substances
besides rain water are allowed down the drains. Morgan from
the Mutual a protest clean up group Team Raccoon, so
they could feel the remnants in the air returning to
ground Zerial every morning. Basically, we we got a little
bit of money from Mutually donations and we were wondering

(40:17):
what because part cleans are pretty low cost, you know,
trash bags, trash grabbers, doesn't cost a lot of money
to maintain that. So we were wondering, like, what do
we do with this money that will really help our community.
And we were noticing the air quality in Loudsdale and
Chapman getting worse and worse and worse because of the
tear gas and the chemical munitions every night. Even just

(40:39):
walking through there during the day, you wanted to put
your respirator on. At the end of July, the move
led to a mass mobilization of respirators and on the
ground research into the gas Morgan continues, so we we're
connected to some researchers who wanted to keep a certain
level anonymity, and we decided the best way to do

(41:04):
that was through us. We could accept filters from the
protest community, and we could give them to the researchers.
The researchers could conduct their studies and the privacy that
they want, and we could use mutual aid money to
facilitate that. Meanwhile, city bureaucrats began running their own tests
on the sediments collected from the nearby drains to test

(41:26):
for the primary chemicals associated with tear gas, hexa villa, chrarium,
pe joliot, barium, and sinai. The following month, the Barreau
released its finding, saying that while there were higher levels
of toxins at the source of the storm drains, by
the time they hit the river levels were pretty much normal.

(41:47):
The results only accounted for the August round of chemicals
found in the river. B As officials insisted, however, that
the testing was thorough as an accounted for the build
up of chemicals that have been deployed since of George
b uprisings in late May. This didn't stop five environmental
groups from teaming up to launch a lawsuit against the
Department of Homeland Security, alleging they were out of compliance

(42:11):
with the National Environmental Policy Act by not conducting an
assessment on the impacts of their gas ahead of using it,
breaking federal law. Represented by the a c l U,
the group seeked a complete savage and federal usage of
tear gas. DHS ended up pulling out before the ruling

(42:31):
was made, but the question continued to loom. What exactly
were the long term effects of tear gas. It's a
question that's further complicated when considering the findings of Chemical
Weapons Research Conservatorium, who say during the FEDS occupation, a
mix of CS gas and toxic chemical smoke grenades made

(42:53):
Hexa chlor thane or HC gas. HC is a toxic
compound band by the US military for its severe health effects,
but was deployed repeatedly by federal agents against the people
of Portland's easily identifiable by the way the canisters glow red,
continuously spouting dents opaque smoke for a minute or more.

(43:15):
Juniper Seminists, who helped lead the research team, explains its
effects here. Um I saw a number of people that
had basically chemical burns, the chemical miss burns UM that
they had never had with other gases. UM, the UH
stomach set of symptoms. So if you ingest it, which
you would do through gulping UM or just having your

(43:37):
mouth I'll been walking through gas UM, that will cause vomiting, UM, nausea, UM,
and that whole kind of set of symptoms. Because your
body wants knows that zinc is bad, it wants it
out UM in your lungs. However, UM, what happens is
UM zinc chloride is really corrosive because of the chlorine.

(44:03):
Among the complications, a number of protesters reported having prolonged
regular menstal cycles, sometimes bleeding for weeks after exposure to
the gas. Oregon Public Broadcasting and spoke with twenty six
people attended the protests and self reported changes in their bodies.
Effects reported included trans people who would cease taking testosterone shots,

(44:25):
beginning to menstruate again. Others reported pain so uncomfortable they
had to take a trip to the hospital and one
month alone. Others reported multiple cycles for a long time,
especially right now with COVID. We it's it's kind of
hard to tweez out. If somebody has a long term
symptom that's gonna linger for a while. I think due

(44:47):
to the pandemic, it's going to confound a lot of
these things, a lot more. Is gonna make it a
lot more difficult to tweez out one from the other definitively,
you know. Um, But I do think it needs to
be investigated. I hope people don't forget about it, especially
what the unhoused. You know, Portland has a really high

(45:10):
number of unhoused individuals, and my heart broke for them,
like every day because you know, we back up and
go home, but you know, we're we're in their space essentially.
So if it's getting tear gas every single night constantly,
they're actually the ones that's getting exposed the most and
have the highest frequacy of exposure. Um. But for whatever reason,

(45:34):
it's not too many people advocating for them in this space.
So I just really wanted to throw that out there. Well,
no definitive links have been made yet between tear gas
and the regular cycles. The string of complaints made for
yet another worry as protesters hit the front lines each night,
facing off with the police force armed with the band

(45:55):
war chemical whose true effects may not be known for
years to come. About a week after George Floyd's murder,
Don't Shoot Portland's lost a class action lawsuit against the
City of Portland's alleging indiscriminate use of tear gas an
excessive force at the hands of the Portland Police Bureau.
Shortly thereafter, U S District Judge Marco Hernandez ruled in

(46:19):
their favor, placing a two week restraining order on the
bureau until further court ruling. However, there was a catch.
In his ten page ruling, the judge wrote the following quote.
In addition, tear gas you shall be limited to situations
in which the lives are safety of the public or
the police are at risk. This includes the lives and

(46:41):
safety of those housed at the Justice Center. Tear gas
shall not be used to disperse crowds where there's little
or no risk of injury. End quote. That little or
no risk left a lot up to interpretation for the
Portland Police Bureau. Governor k Brown signed a bill that
had banned tear gas following Hernandez's ruling that followed similar

(47:02):
directors in July, tear gas was banned only into the
police declare riot loudly. Police had already been loosing their
existing directors for when and when not to use tear gas.
Up until then, the only thing preventing thousands from being
draped in wartime chemicals was officers on the ground declaring

(47:23):
the gatherer a quote unlawful assembly. After that, you'd have
to hear something like this a few times, the youth
of tear gas, crowd control agent of or impact button.
Once this request for dispersal was given over the loudspeaker
a few times, it was up to the incident commander

(47:44):
to give the green light on firing the gas into
the crowd. After the so called temporary band, things pretty
much continued to follow this pattern from the police chief
to the mayor. Officials at the city continued to argue
that tear gas was a key tool, and the cops
arsenal to this first protesters, but despite the questionable use
of ports preaching the First Amendment, the gas often encroached

(48:07):
on those who weren't even on the front lines of
the demonstrations. Tear gases grip loomed across the city, and
in the case of Demesia Smith, it followed her family
home and all of a sudden they've seen flashing lights
and looked outside and the whole p p A building
was lined with riot officers. And uh, the last time

(48:27):
we had protested, I don't remember the exact day. We
were downtown and it was the day it made news
that the police had tear gas. Like, um, there was
a group of protesters that weren't a part of like
a group of three thousand people, but the police like
tear gas everybody was that was down there. My son
was caught in the middle of that. So he's like
already been like on edge about police. So he called
me freaking out that the riot police were all front

(48:50):
of the building, in front of my mom's house, and
he was like crying, like hysterically, like he didn't know
what was going to happen, and he was just telling
me to be careful. And there was no protesters. There
was just old police, but like their presence I had
him freaked out and crying. So I'm leaving work and
when I come home, so I can't park there, can't
even get through to there because at that time, now

(49:11):
the protesters have made it to the p p A
building as well as the riot officers. So I'm like
circling around, circling around, and I couldn't park anywhere close enough.
So I parked my car at home and walked all
the way through because I'm trying to get to my kid.
So I'm walking through and uh, everybody, all of a sudden,

(49:33):
you just start seeing smoke whatnot. But again I'm in
mom mode and like, that's my house. And again I
already the police aren't. I've just witnessed the police not
acting right there in protests. Are like no, they're trying
to push me back, and I'm like, I've lived right here.
You guys can see my ID. One days in, crowds
continued to show up, and cops continued to guess. To Mr.

(49:57):
Ender lives just off the Ventura Park in East Lane.
On a hundred night of protests, he found his neighborhood
blanketed in tear gas and I was like, oh jeez.
So then at that point, we make our way past
tear gas again and uh basically climbed our little fence
and jump over that to get inside our house and

(50:18):
make sure all the windows were closed, and then we
put towels under the the two kids rooms. I mean,
we have a at that point. We had a one
month old child, two month old child, and a two
year old child, and uh, it's incredibly scary to have
tear gas deployed. Um. It was more than one canister

(50:39):
of tear gas that was deployed in front of our house. Um,
and you know have anywhere to go, So the police
are on all sides of my house. Um, there's loud speakers, UM,
loud noises, Uh, tear gas being deployed. I mean the
streaming from my house was a war zone. Um. The
police turned it into a war zone. And the response

(51:00):
was over the top. Um it was, in my opinion,
meant to chill speech. And UM. I mean we don't
have gas mass in our house, and they don't make
a gas mask for a two month old child, and
so our options is limited. I mean it's if it
was a private individual doing this, I could defend my house. UM,

(51:22):
but I don't have that luxury when it's the government
doing it. A member of Team Raccoon have been cleaning
up trash and spent munitions at protests throughout the summer.
After the ongoing gassing of neighborhoods, they shifted to supplying
families with respirators for their children. What we found was
that the best situation was three M respirator for ages

(51:45):
about seven and up and younger than that. What we
do is we get something called the Bart system, which
is a pressure positive hood that also has a straw
and a sippy cup, and it's made for young children.
And the pressure positive hood helps so they don't have
to have anything strapped to their face. And UM, the

(52:07):
motor keeps it keeps filtered air moving through the hood,
so it never um, it never stops moving out and
that's how they keep the tear gas away from children.
For infants, we weren't really able to find something that
was super affordable and um easy to get, So for

(52:32):
infants we basically suggest, UM what people do when UM
they are trying to keep tear gas out of their homes,
roll up a towel and put it under the door. UM.
Try to get as far away from windows or any
exit points as possible if you need to evac, you know,

(52:55):
try to make sure that you get too safe air
as quickly as possible. But there aren't a lot of
answers when you're talking about infant impact and tear gas
or prevention from getting tear gas in infants lungs. As
the smoke from September wildfire settled over, Portland's Mayor Wheeler

(53:16):
issued a ban on CS gas. Wheeler's police bureau pushed back.
Both the police chief and their union had publicly rallied
against him, with the Portland Police Association launching a full
on petition railing against the band. Then the smoke cleared.
Just days after Wheeler's ban, a familiar scene formed outside
the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Building, with calls by protesters

(53:37):
to abolish ICE. A group of about a hundred gathered
outside the facility and were met not by PPB but
federal agents shortly after nightfall tear gas and sued alongside
pellets and smoke bombs. Wheeler and Police chief level were
quick to announce that their bureau wasn't responsible for the
night's chaos, which ended with nearly a dozen arrests. Protests
continued in much this way in the days following the

(53:59):
wild fires, direct actions around town at night drawing out
a few dozen people who would be met with police
force and arrests, and while the police force had yet
to cease the use of tear gas, had come to
a halt since the mayor's ban. In the weeks leading
up to the election, much of the city's downtown corps
was boarded up, businesses feared of broken windows. At the
local level, an unpopular mayor and police commissioner was set

(54:22):
up for re election, with many constituents divided over whether
or not to vote for his self described every day
Antifa opponents Sarah Yanerone and a community led ride in
campaign for Don't Shoot Portland's founder Teresa Rayford, who came
in third in the primaries. This and other key council
races had many on edge for the future of the city.
On top of that, the decidedly blue Portland, which had

(54:43):
just seen a fatal clash of Trump caravans and BLM protesters,
waited to see if the forty five president who just
occupied the city would occupy the seat for four more years.
Wheeler eaked out a win against his opponents, receiving less
than the combined votes of Yann Eronne and the riding's
but enough to secure his seat again to the lament
of many activists. Trump lost to Biden. Protests ensued later

(55:06):
that November. Yet another tear gas related suit was filed,
this time by inmates of the Justice Center. While the
use of gas had come to a halt, their class
action suit turned its finger at the Moultnoma County Sheriff's office,
alleging that from the first day of the protests, those
caged at the Justice Center were left to suffer as
gas from the outside seeped into their cells. More than
three inmates joined in the suit, many of them had

(55:29):
yet to be convicted and were awaiting trial. The suit
described a number of alleged incidents of inmates coughing, wheezing,
and kneeling over in agony in the weeks of protest.
They were stuck in their cells, and some repeated a
familiar refrain, one that sparked global uprisings, I can't breathe.
Tear gas continues to be a tool used by most
urban police departments across the country. The nightly chemical warfare

(55:52):
that police enacted on Portland streets, along with other munitions,
turned the city both into a battlefield and a testing ground.
The true mental, physical, and environmental effects of the gassing
may not be realized for years to come, but from
Portland to Hong Kong, one thing remains clear. While protest
tactics may adapt over the years, the response of governments
remains largely the same, suppress and silence dissent. Portland's continued

(56:16):
to push back imperfectly, but with more skill. Some broke windows,
while others simply claim their streets. Grabbed a bullhorn for
the first time and demanded to all who could hear
that without justice, there would be no peace. From optics
to effectiveness, some on the so called left were split
on which roads best aided in the liberation of black lives,
and while diversity of tactics got sticky at times, many

(56:38):
will argue that the norm most protesters rail against is
more insufferable. We quoted Malcolm X at the beginning of
this episode. One of the most popular phrases he's known
for is by any means necessary. As we reflect on
the lessons of the ongoing movement for Black lives and
the months of protests that took over Portland, will leave
you with a more full version of that quote he

(56:58):
gave during a speech at the founding of the Organization
of Afro American Unity in nineteen sixty four. We declare
our right on this earth to be a human being,
to be respected as a human being to be given
the rights of a human being in this society, on
this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring
into existence by any means necessary. Last episode, you may

(57:19):
remember us speaking with junior perseminists about chemical communitions used
by the FEDS and local law enforcement during the protests.
We wanted to offer a correction about some of the
statements issued during that last episode. Juniper Sminis is in
fact Dr Juni per Siminus, with fifteen years under their
bill as a quantitative conservation biologists and the research we

(57:43):
said they helped lead with chemical weapons research Concertorium on
hex chlorothane gas or HC gas, there is so much
as help lead, but in fact spearheaded the effort with
the assistance of some volunteers. There's in fact a why
ranging array of research and science regarding HC gas an

(58:03):
tear gas out in the world, some dating bad decades,
but even today researchers continue to unearth more understanding about
what the real impacts of these chemicals are on humans,
animals in wildlife, and the environment at large. Another thing
is scientists are sort of constant skeptics. So when we

(58:24):
say that no definitive links have been drawn when it
comes to research, especially in the world of science. It's
almost an oxymoronic statement. Everything can be challenged to gain
better understandings of the floating rock we live on and
everything else beyond it. What we do know for sure
is that the countless munitions unlesha on Portland's left, scores

(58:47):
of protesters ailing as scientists continue to unearth new research
on these chemicals. The Uprising team would like to offer
our apology for the errors reported in that last episode.
Uh where the grandpops who couldn't fathom the obamasis, I
don't hate America just to me? And she keeps the
promises teens looking like the sixties. It's crazy, a nationwide

(59:11):
deja who what my people post to do? Go to
schools named after the clan founder we're around town? Is?
I don't see why we're frowning Native American students forced
to learn about wind o'pellah Sarah? How is that fair? Bro?
Some Euros unsung in some monsters get monuments built for them.
But it ain't be all a little bit of monster.
We crook it