December 15, 2020 • 40 mins
After more than a month of enduring police violence, Portland protesters finally leveled up enough to fight back. This is the story of the battle of July 4th.
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
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Violence has a curious way of rendering you both more
resilient to and less tolerant of more violence. By the
start of July, every regular protester and press member in
the city of Portland had seen dozens of flash band
grenades detonate within feet of their heads. In June lo
One I was tear gas at least sixty times, and
there are literally thousands of other Portlanders who endured similar barrages.
(00:42):
We'd all run like hell from charging riot lines, which
isn't experience in and of itself. I've been to war
zones on two continents. I've been shot at, and I've
been shelled once, and I can honestly say that being
bul rushed by dozens of armored policemen ranks as among
the most frightening things I've ever experienced. It's certainly less
lethal than coming under sniper fire, but there's something uncontrollably
(01:02):
panic inducing about being chased by a wall of angry
men who want to harm you. The lizard part of
your brain starts firing, panic rises up in the primal
hinterlands of your brain. If you aren't careful, it takes
over completely. And even if you do stay in control
the adrenaline coursing through your system. It'll make your handshake,
It'll blur the parts of your mind to make coherent
(01:23):
thought possible. Portland protesters learned a lot through the month
of June, but one thing they didn't quite figure out
was how to stand up against a charging riot line.
They did learn a lot of other valuable things, though,
(01:45):
Tear gas went from something that instantly dispersed crowds to
more of a moderate annoyance. Some of this was a
product of people acquiring gas masks and respirators, but more
of it had to do with people learning how to
treat gas injuries, how to put out or throw back
smoking canisters, and most importantly, how not to panic while
choking on poison. One major way this information spread in
(02:06):
the early days were live streams. Conundrum, A blind journalist
who recorded soundscapes of the Portland riots recalls how she
used live stream audio to train herself up before going out.
And I had been, you know, since like the first week,
helping out in ways I can sort of from behind
the scenes constantly. It took until middle you know, because initially,
(02:28):
when all this started going down, you know, here in Portland,
I was like, how can I be involved? You know,
logic brain is going, Okay, Katie, you're blind. Not safe
for you to go out there. You know, all of
all of these reasons why blind person probably running through
clouds of tear gas not not the greatest idea you've
ever had. Um. And so it was like, Okay, Well,
(02:50):
what are the other ways I can I can support
the community at large and specific people who I know
that are out there. Well, for one, I got that
stimulus check and I didn't need it, so I'm like,
who needs gear? Um? So donating into different organizations that
was one way that I could help very easily. In
my position. I live by myself. I live like a
(03:11):
student because I am a student and I yeah, um,
also supporting friends that I had who were out on
the ground, like sitting there watching all of the live
streams and like following all of you guys that were
out there on the ground since day one. Like I'm
sitting there up all night every night, eight nights a
week because some number of my friends are out every night, right,
(03:35):
And so as stuff gets started, I start pulling up
every stream that I could find. So, yeah, that was
a lot of what I would be doing is having
multiple live streams playing at the same time, like listening
to the audio's Obviously, I can't see what's happening in
the videos, so I mean I was not as effective
as somebody who could actually see the pictures, obviously, and
that tiny regard. I can't see the pictures people are
(03:57):
tweeting out or what's in them. But you know, me
and some of my friends had some groups set up
where I wasn't the only one doing this, and we
would sort of share the information with each other first
before passing it on to the people who were, you know,
out and about, like, hey, guys, maybe stay away from
Third and managed and there's reports of fascists in a
truck with u S flags like don't go around, there's
a guy with a gun, you know, stuff like that.
(04:18):
Once people were actually out on the ground getting tear
gas and grenated and charged on a regular basis, they
started coalescing into groups based on what they were particularly
interested in doing to help out. For Chris and a
number of his colleagues, that meant learning to work as
a team of medics. This kid out a broken shoulder, um,
and there's a bunch of people crowding around being like
(04:40):
I'm medic, but I've only got water and band aids
and stuff. Um. And I wandered up and I said, Hi,
my name's Chris. UM, I have triangle band just would
you like one? And so I met a medic friend
that way, and then I met all of their medic
friends and it's like, well we should keep in contact.
You guys have signaling made like a small signal group. Um.
And then I started to meet other medics and like
(05:01):
get their signal information and met other medics that we're
doing the same thing. And so we all kind of
like everybody kind of met like five medics and all
five medics new another five medics and so it all
kind of um coalesced like that. UM. So there's a
lot of independent medics. But really there are these medic groups,
and within the internal communications that we have, we usually
(05:24):
have like a few people like one or two people
from each group. Like I'm with PAM. I know other
medics that are with PAM that are in like uh
you know, in communication. Um. And then you know there's
the e walks and we'll know some e walks and
well if I can't get ahold of the walks, I
know somebody you can. If I can't get ahold of
(05:46):
rose hips, I know somebody you can. UM. And so
we do all try and talk to each other. UM.
We try and talk to each other on the day
of to make sure that you know, like we're all
on the same page because different medics sceptor styles UM.
And then another reason that's so important is because especially
in emergency medicine UM, you're taught how to deal with
(06:07):
like bio hazards, situations, you know, things where you need
to triage things where there's a lot of patients at once,
and there's a lot of people coming from different places
to be medics, and you have to learn you know
who's above you, who's below you, so that you're not
stepping at each other's does and getting each other's way.
And so learning what everyone's scope of practices was very important.
And that's just kind of a standard question that we ask.
(06:29):
Now if you meet somebody that you haven't met, they're like, oh,
medic would be like, oh hey, cool, my name's Chris.
UM has trained as an m t uh, if you
don't mind me asking what's your scope of practice? Because
sometimes there are people will be like, oh yeah, I've
been taking care of my mom for like five years,
but I have no formal training and be like, all right, cool,
I'm gonna keep that in mind so that when something happens,
you know, I don't ask someone like, hey, grab my
(06:50):
sand's plant and mold it for me. I can be like, hey,
hold my flashlight, guy, um. Or sometimes you know, we
know a lot of people get tear gas. Those people
are really good because flushing eyes isn't hard, and I
can teach somebody out the flush eyes, um, and that way,
if we've got those people flushing eyes and then someone
else has like a broken bone, I can deal with that.
(07:12):
There were small emergent groups who brought shields, others who
brought traffic cones and water jugs to douse tear gas,
and others who showed up with food and protective gear
to hand out to protesters. A number of disabled activists
who did not feel they could safely participate in toe
to toe confrontations with riot lines, filled valuable logistic roles
making sure that front liners had ample water, respirator filters,
(07:34):
and food. Juniper was one of hundreds of people who
took it upon themselves to see that the Portland protests
were supplied with what they needed. I was able to
UM feel like I could go and drop off supplies
like I have. You know, I am a middle class,
upwardly mobile white person, UM, and I have some money,
(07:56):
and there are people out on the front lines putting
their bodies and live on the line. And so I
was like, I'm gonna go give some snacks to people
and get some water and just some other other protective
equipment and things that I had that I knew could
be useful. Other small groups helped coordinate aid and raise
attention for actions online. One of these organizations was pop
Mob or Popular Mobilization, who formed early on in the
(08:19):
Trump administration after a series of disastrous and bloody dueling
rallies between fascist and anti fascist protesters in Portland. Pop
Mob acted as a sort of unifying bridge for different
local anti fascist groups, with a focus on getting the
word out to large groups of what they called everyday
anti fascists. These were people who weren't hardcore activists but
(08:40):
didn't want Nazis marching around their city when Portland's BLM
movement took off, Though Effie Baum and their colleagues at
pop Mob decided they should take a less visible support role,
so mostly just retweeting things and then UM when people
would share events with us, boosting those events or boosting
different affinity groups that were involved in the nightly protests,
and UM really just kind of providing a UM UH
(09:05):
basically a signal boost to the people that we're doing
organizing UM and specifically like focusing only on trying to
boost UM bipoc led efforts, especially given all of the
conversation around UM white anarchists and UM you know, co
opting the movement or the you know, media like to
(09:27):
blame everything on white anarchists, which then takes away the
autonomy and disempowers the people that were in fact organizing
those events and the very real anger UM and justified
anger behind those events. And so we also did not
want to UM contribute to that narrative in any way,
shape or form. So we really made a very intest
(09:50):
intentional efforts to UM operate exclusively in a supportive role.
A lot of us were there UM many nights, and
UM continue to go out many nights, but UM the
organization as a whole did not have an organizational presence
as organizers. One of the you know, goals that we
(10:15):
would you know, have is pushing back against kind of
this like white supremisist culture that we have all that
we all participate in every day. And so that was
one of the main reasons we did not want to
take any kind of lead in the organizing is because
it's one thing when we are coming out and organizing
(10:39):
against jere like Joey Gibson and Patriot Prayer Um who
you know, the proad Boys and those groups target a
lot of different marginalized and vulnerable populations from you know,
many different UM groups, and so in a sense you
could look at it say that that the work is
(11:01):
similar UM. But at the same time, I think that
it's important for the people who are most affected to
be the voices that people are hearing, and especially because
we've seen how much that the media has latched onto
trying to discredit those voices by painting it as angry
(11:23):
white anarchists. As the days and weeks wore on Portland,
protesters grew hardened and increasingly effective at standing up to
police violence. Tear gas and grenades stopped working to disperse crowds,
Pepper balls, little paintball style projectiles filled with mace and
fired from a paintball gun. Likewise, lost their effectiveness As
shields became more common, police bulrushes remained the most effective
(11:44):
tactic for dispersing crowds, especially since by late June most
of those crowds were quite small. Portland protesters started gathering
on Telegram, an anonymous messaging app, in order to coordinate
and pass on intelligence. During events. People would warn each
other of police charges in the presence of riot trucks.
Before and after events, they would dissect their performance and
(12:05):
discuss ways to improve. Near the end of June, they
started talking about how protesters might form their own shield wall,
something that could stand up against police charges. Now, in
between numerous knights of reporting on riots, my partner Elaine Kinchin,
spent hours browsing through those conversations and watching is people
worked out how to defend themselves from charging officers. I'm
(12:26):
gonna throw you over to e Lane now explaining how
that process came together. Well, since that our the beginning
of the protests, there had been various diagrams that were
circulating on the Internet. A lot of them came from
things that had been done in Hong Kong, so different
diagrams of roles that protesters could take two more effectively
(12:47):
protect each other. Some of those involved laser pointers, and
some of them involved shields or helmets or supply line stuff.
And so those have been being circulated throughout all of June,
both on protester telegram channels and also on Twitter and
other communication channels. And as the charges than bullrushes and
(13:10):
stuff really heated up and more people were being injured
and the police brutality was becoming more intense, a lot
of those discussions and how to effectively implement them would
be happening after protests had wound down or during the day,
and so I would follow and read through all sorts
(13:31):
of different threads where people were posting images of how
to do Roman style turtleshelf formations with overlapping shields, or
could make an effective vault to block the people behind
them from police munitions to more effectively protect all the
peaceful protesters who are in the back. All these different
emergent groups that form to handle different tasks within the
(13:53):
movement are what is called affinity groups. This is a
fairly old concept within anarchist organizing. Here, our friends at
the Youth Liberation Front or Wild Left explain the context again.
Because President Trump and numerous right wing media figures have
repeatedly called for their imprisonment or execution, we've hired voice
actors to reread the things they said to us rather
than risk exposing their identities. So an affinity group is
(14:16):
usually like five to tend people who share some affinity,
and it's the preferred method for anarchist organizing because it's small,
it's informal, and usually non hierarchical, and usually horizontally organized. Yeah,
and um, it's uh. I think it's been preferable to
like the large organization model that we attempted and just
failed because there's no accountability and there's no way to
(14:38):
ensure that. Like, everyone was cool with each other and
when problems came up, they just sucked us over. We
spoke to one anonymous activist who had no experience with
anarchist organizing prior to the summer of She started coming
out to Portland protests earlier in the summer with her friends.
So the first time I went out to one of
the nightly protests, I went with a couple of friends
that I've known since I was like eighteen or nineteen
(15:00):
because they had been going out and I felt comfortable
being with them. Um, they don't come out anymore. Once
her friends stopped going, she floated around different crews of activists,
experimenting with different affinity groups, but eventually deciding that she
preferred an even more decentralized approach to protesting. As far
as you know, like my length of knowledge, an affinity
(15:22):
group is just you know, a decentralized group of people
that you can uh form ideas with and kind of
go over maybe like safety tactics and different things like that. Um.
But I kind of quickly realized that affinity groups weren't
necessarily for me. UM. I think that sometimes it can
(15:43):
get complicated fairly quickly, and so I still go down
to the protests by myself. Since I've been doing this
for as long as I have, it doesn't take me
very long to run into somebody that I know. And
sometimes I feel like having someone that's worried about my
safety can be a bit of a hindrance sometimes, I
(16:05):
you know, having to like be on a radio consistently
and and always be on my phone to make sure
that I'm you know, in communication with different people. I
don't want anybody to have to worry about if I'm
going to be fine, because I'm going to be fine.
So yeah, I mean I I just I usually go
down by myself. I think that the network of affinity
(16:28):
groups has been a positive thing. You know. The people
that have been around and experienced the most have that
information that they can share with one another. One major
advantage of anarchist organizing tactics is that it makes anarchist
groups harder to infiltrate and disrupt. Between nineteen fifty six
and nineteen seventy one, the FBI instituted a counter intelligence
(16:50):
program nicknamed co intel Pro at the orders of Director
j Edgar Hoover. The program was initially targeted at the
US Communist Party, but was quickly extended to all kinds
of left wing activist organizations, particularly the Black Panthers. Hoover's
goal with co Intel Pro was to increase factionalism caused
disruption and wind defections. He wanted to spread such terror
(17:12):
among left wing activists that none of them would again
walk into a meeting without feeling like there must be
FBI agents in the room. Co Intel Pro was incredibly successful,
and while the program officially ended in nineteen seventy one.
The tactics the FBI pioneered in this period have been
used by a variety of law enforcement agencies ever since.
Even organizations like the Portlands Chapter of the Black Panthers,
(17:33):
whose more radical programs included free breakfast for neighborhood kids
and dental care for all, earned the ire of co
intel pro In an interview last year, chapter co founder
Kent Ford recalled a journalist sharing with him plots from
the FBI to poison the produce the Panthers would use
to feed hundreds of kids every morning. As a result,
it is impossible to take part in any kind of
mass anti government action and not feel like there are
(17:56):
probably federal agents in your miss. Organizing by affinity groups
helps to negate some of the advantages the state has.
It's impossible to know that any mass group of hundreds
(18:16):
of people doesn't include undercover cops, but it is very
possible to know that you and your four or five
close buddies aren't cops. The only organizing that occurs in
the open at a large scale event is very basic
and not legally incriminating. I e. We're gathering at this
park at eight PM, hearing speeches, and then marching at nine.
On most occasions, either a specific organizer will pick the
(18:37):
direction for that week's march or a vote will be
taken as to the destination. The decision to take part
in any illegal activity, acts of property destruction in the
like is made by these small, independent affinity groups and
sometimes just individuals on their own. Often only two or
three groups out of a three person march will actually
engage in serious law breaking. The others are there to shout,
wave signs and stand up to confront the police when
(19:00):
they inevitably arrive. This method of organization does have a
number of weaknesses, which we will discuss in subsequent episodes,
but it has proven more resilient to state surveillance than
being part of an organization with a strict hierarchy. One
major aspect of this is that many more dedicated Portland
protesters take something called security culture very seriously. Here's the
y I left again. Security culture. Uh, security culture, I
(19:24):
think is it's interesting the risks you are taking and
what precautions need to take to be safe. Were like
because like, not every risk is going to have the
same consequences, and so it's being able to judge those,
um and like if you do something that's questionable, possibly illegal,
don't talk about it, don't don't incriminate yourself, keep your
mouth shut, don't incriminate others. I mean, Um, there's just
(19:47):
a crime Think article called what is security Culture? I
believe and that's like a great introduction for people who
don't know. It's a very important part of like really
any movement because if you have bad security culture and
you're putting yourself at risk or or the organizers at risks,
you're going to disrupt a movement because you're going to
get people in trouble. So like that definitely plays like
(20:07):
don't let you know, don't talk about things you did,
don't photograph things you did. You can like you know,
don't don't bring your phone if that's the thing you're
able to do, because like they could track you, and
Feds in Portland literally clone phones and have like you know,
they can just pinpoint you. So that's another thing where
it's like yeah, basically it's knowing the risk and knowing
how to safely protect yourself from those risks. That Zene
(20:29):
what is security Culture? We like to make sure to
send it to all everyone who wants to get involved
with us. That's like the first thing. Yeah, it's the
most basic thing that we send. None of these security
measures were enough to protect people from being arrested by
cops during actions. It doesn't matter how solid your digital
security is or how trustworthy your friends are if a
cop charges that you faster than you can run away,
(20:51):
But good security culture can prevent activists from being arrested
after actions. See the United States is filled to hell
and back with cameras when protest sterre's damage or destroy property.
While protesting police will spend weeks trying to identify the
individuals responsible. This is a big part of why black
block has evolved as a tactic. If everyone is dressed
basically identically, with their features covered and no logos or
(21:13):
tattoo showing, it's much more difficult for police to identify
people after an action. Going in block has disadvantages too,
though largely when it comes to optics. When you're properly
blocked up, it will be difficult or impossible to determine
your race. As a result, police and local politicians in
Portland tended to blame the activities of blocked up crowds
on white anarchists alleging that the city's Black Lives Matter
(21:36):
movement had been hijacked by white kids who just wanted
to break things. Kosca, an Indigenous Portlander who has been
arrested by this point at least ten times, pushed back
against that characterization. Definitely a narrative that works because people
believe it, and people keep repeating it, even some people
of color. I hear repeating it. But I know for
a fact it's not true, because because I've been doing
(21:59):
this with, you know, people in Black Block for several
years and have gotten to know lots of people, and
I have never ever seen so many people of color
in block before, and particularly Native people, you know, like
the just the native people in block is a huge
amount compared, you know, compared to the population the general
(22:24):
population of the area. So yeah, I think it's I
think you could even say it's races to say that
everyone in Black Block is white. In September, after more
than four months of nightly protests, the Justice Department launched
a criminal inquiry targeting the leaders of organizations responsible for
anti police brutality protests across the nation. Homeland Security Secretary
(22:45):
Chad Wolf told Fox News what we know is that
we have seen groups and individuals moved from Portland to
other parts of the country. I also found a very
poorly written USA Today article on the subject and includes
this paragraph. Asked why leaders of Antifa, a loosely organized
dream far left ideology, and Black Lives Matter formed in
part to call attention to violence against black communities, had
(23:05):
not been arrested, Wolf said, this is something I talked
to the a G personally about and I know that
they are working on it. So far, these investigations have
been markedly unsuccessful. Leaked reports later in the year revealed
that the Department of Homeland Security thought that Antifa was
an organized group with a structured leadership cast that could
be identified and arrested. No evidence of this was ever
(23:25):
turned up. Would suggest that this sort of decentralized organizational
tactic is at least harder for law enforcement to penetrate.
The vast majority of affinity groups don't exist to organized
window breaking, fire starting, or any of the other things
the media love to focus on in their coverage of
Portland protests. At their most basic level, affinity groups are
a safety tool. Cop rights can be incredibly dangerous, and
(23:47):
everyone considering going into such a situation should have buddies
who are there to watch your back and render aid
if you get hurt. Obviously, not everyone interested in participating
in protests had friends who are willing to go out
with them. Inter Comrade Collective an organization that formed in
the middle of the protest to help match loan activists
with buddies they could protest with for the night. And so, um,
(24:10):
the first time I had met up with Comrade Collective,
it was funny because like, you know, I had all
this like anxiety and stuff, and uh, I remember thinking like,
oh my god, I'm so uncomfortable, like I don't know
these people. And then I was like I'm totally not
going to meet up with them again because I was like,
I'll just stay by myself. Um, here we are. But
but it was like it was when I when I left,
(24:34):
and um, one of our other comrades, uh like messaged
me and was like are you home and like I
wasn't expecting that, and I was like what And I
was like, oh my god, that's awesome. And then just
like getting used to like the checking in, you know,
to make sure like they're not arrested or didn't get
attacked by you know, fascists or whatever, and so just
(24:57):
kind of like, um, I think just getting exposed to
like people, I'm like, oh my god, these are like
strangers that I don't know that like give a ship
about my well being and so that kind of in
turn makes you care more about yourself like and then
also want to do the same for others. And I
(25:19):
also I'm one that likes that tends to stray from
the group. So like, I'm definitely like comfortable by myself
in certain situations, but I still I even if I'm separated,
I just I like to know that there is someone
out there that like I can hit up or whatever
or check in with, even if we're not like together
(25:40):
at that moment. By the start of July, all the
ingredients were in place for Portland's protest movement to display
its first real meaningful resistance to the violent might of
a police riot line. Protests had seriously waned in the
days prior to the fourth, with just a few dozen
people showing up most nights, but the holiday, and more
to the point, the fact that shiploads fireworks were on
sale for the holiday, brought a massive crowd of more
(26:03):
than a thousand Portlander's out to the city parks in
front of the Justice Center and the Mark O. Hatfield
Federal Courthouse. In the days that followed DHS Director Chad
Wolf's announcement that rapid deployment teams were being sent to
Portland's activists had been on the lookout for Feds. They'd
been visible inside the I R. S Building across the
street from the Justice Center. Reporters had taken several photographs
(26:23):
of men in heavy military body armor carrying rifles, but
until the fourth none of those men had actively engaged
with a protest. My team, Beatrix, Selaine, and Garrison and
I all arrived in front of the Justice Center at
around nine pm. The energy in the air was as
apparent as the smell of gunpowder. People were setting off fireworks,
mostly mortars, at random in and around the crowd. We
(26:52):
hated it at first, after weeks of being repeatedly flashbanged
by cops. We were all just ridiculously on edge. The
first thing I saw upon a rifle was a pile
of American flags burning in a concrete pit that had
once held a massive elk statue. For several nights in
a row, protesters had set fires in and around the
elk statue, not out of anger, but out of a
desire to stay warm, and one assumes for the joy
(27:14):
of setting fires. Eventually, the city removed the elk out
of fears that it might collapse and injure somebody. Protesters
loved the elk statue, though, and began constructing a series
of fasimilar elk statues. On the fourth it was a
tiny model of a baby elk sandwiched in between billowing flames.
While the flags burned, protesters chanted Black Lives Matter. As
(27:38):
more folks arrived, more fireworks were set off. At first,
people simply stood in the street in front of the
Justice Center, aiming fireworks straight into the air to provide
their incarcerated friends with the show. This was not universally
popular behavior, because again, at least half the crowd was
dealing with the opening salvos of pretty serious PTSD. At
this point, of course, the fireworks continued, and once they
(28:11):
hit a certain frequency, everyone's brains kind of gotten numb
to the effect. If I can be honest, it started
to be fun. Some individuals and affinity groups within the
crowd had brought lasers to shine into the giant camera
that had been installed out in front of the Justice Center.
By ten PM, the fireworks usage had grown more militant,
(28:33):
and people were shooting dozens of commercial grade fireworks straight
into the Justice Center, breaking several windows. At least one
prisoner inside was seen waving excitedly out to the crowd,
which provoked rejoicing outside the fire where sparrage continued, with
protesters aiming occasional salvos at the Federal courthouse too. At
(28:55):
around ten PM, the police finally showed up your justice
in the building we crooket. Virtually all the people out
(29:25):
on the fourth were by this point hardened the police violence.
They've been trained by weeks in the streets to do
exactly the opposite of whatever the police l rad told
them to do, true to form. They surged forward at this,
moving in force into the intersection between the courthouse and
Justice Center. More and more fireworks were launched at both buildings.
As I moved forward, sensing imminent tear gas, I heard
one person behind me say they shouldn't have said anything.
(29:48):
Look what happens when they talk. At ten forty one pm,
I started live streaming. Almost immediately after that, Federal agents
inside the courthouse started dumping tear gas out of holes
in the walls of the courthouse. Yeah, that's yeah. So
basically they so far people were shooting it. Ship noted
(30:09):
fireworks of uh, and they gave a warning, and people
kept firing fireworks And now it looks like SuDS are
out and shooting tear gas into the square. The crowd
backed up, but did not disperse. Instead, they retreated to
the parks, washed each other's eyes out, and continued to
(30:32):
shoot fireworks at both buildings. After a few minutes, they
marched forward again into the intersection. No one knew it
at the time, but with the first federal tear guest
deployment and the decision of protesters to continue advancing on
the courthouse, a series of events had been set into
motion that would turn Portlands into one of the biggest
(30:53):
stories in the country, lead to hundreds of arrests and
several near fatal injuries. I don't believe any of the
people in the c that night particularly wanted that to happen.
I certainly saw no evidence of a concerted plan. Instead,
what I saw was a community of battered people who
had just spent weeks being gassed and grenaded and beaten
with truncheons and arrested for crimes as minor is standing
(31:14):
in an intersection with a sign. They had started coming
out to protest police brutality and wound up repeated victims
of it, and now over the course of June they'd
gotten good at resisting it. Each person there had learned
tactics to mitigate police riot control agents. They'd come to
trust their fellow Portlanders, and now finally there were enough
of them out again to put up serious resistance to
(31:34):
the cops. And they had sacks full of commercial grade
fireworks to throw back at the thin blue line shooting
grenades at them. With all that psychic weight behind them,
there was simply no way this crowd was going to
back down to the demands of police or federal agents. Instead,
the massive Portlanders swarmed the front steps of the federal
courthouse that had just gassed them. They began launching fireworks
(31:55):
directly into its facade, shattering some of the windows higher up.
The street level windows were all covered in plywood, and
those plywood walls had several hinged slits on them that
federal agents inside could flip open to shoot from. I
started calling the murder holes after similar features built into
medieval castles. The term stuck minutes went by. Federal agents
would occasionally fire pepper balls into the crowd, but eleven
(32:17):
PM came and went without another major show of force.
At around eleven o five, the police started dumping gas
or smoke out of the side door of the Justice Center.
The Feds dropped more gas out too, but instead of dispersing,
the crowd moved back in an orderly fashion. Front liners
with umbrellas and shields moved to the front and deflected
pepper balls, while medics washed out eyes and people with
gas masks and respirators ran into the cloud to throw
(32:40):
more fireworks at the courthouse. Yeah, that's drops roping it
out of the wind, obviously, how the fire we're going
off there. The whole situation evolved into something very much
like a siege here one the murders w as a
(33:02):
medieval crime, I think. So that's here they're screweding out
from the trees. So we definitely have like an old
fashioned medieval seed too, sort of crowd getting their fears. Uh,
you see a crowd getting their shields to the front.
You see the defenders firing had a murder hole. You
(33:22):
see fire, you know, pilots shot into the fence. This
is Jesus Christ. Yeah, Friday night, everybody putday night. I
I can't tell what smoked from fireworks and what's tear gas.
I think the FEDS and the police had expected that
(33:42):
gas and pepper balls would suffice to force the crowd away,
but the crowd kept advancing. Dedicated teams would run up
with traffic cones and put out gas grenades. Eventually, the
FEDS and the Portland Police were forced to bombard both
parks just to push the crowd away. Yeah wow, okay
is going wild. Somebody's riding a bicycle with a shield
(34:04):
to the crowd. Fires, fire and bath behind us. Let's
go through here here. Eventually the FEDS and the police
made a decision more gas. It was the most gas
deployed in Portland since tear gas Tuesday. Despite being doused
with gas, the crowd did not scatter. When I washed
my eyes out and was able to look around, I
(34:24):
saw hundreds of people still arraided for battle and ready
to go. The police and federal agents both came out
and forced that night. They marched forward, pumping out gas
and pepper balls and smoke grenades. The crowd was forced
back foot by foot, but they held together. I think
DHS had expected that the presence of federal agents and
military gear would have rattled protesters more, but activists just
(34:44):
treated them like more cops. The sight of fully armored
soldiers in military gear was unsettling, especially since no one
at the time had any idea what agency they were with.
Look at these guys, we got army guys. Look at
guys here. The combined FEDS and police succeeded in splitting
the crowd in two through a combination of walls of
gas and bulrushes, but both groups held together and proceeded
to lead law enforcement on a two hour chase through
(35:07):
the streets of Portland. There were moments of shocking brutality
where police would tackle protesters and dragged them on their
backs across asphalt into clouds of gas to arrest them.
One protester we interviewed was arrested that night. She'd shown
up as a shield bearer and had been one of
the people protecting the crowd from incoming fire. Yeah. Yeah,
the Fourth of July was wild. You know. I think
(35:27):
we everyone went into that night knowing like, you know,
this is the fourth of July. It's going to be
a fairly big night. The protests for really, they were
going strong. And I showed up before the sun went
down and was just kind of doing the thing that
I had been doing the entire time leading up to
that point, which is, you know, I was far enough
away from the police that I could be there if
(35:49):
anyone got tear gas to help them with sailine or
something like that. Um and I had been coming out
each night with like extra gear to hand out to
people that didn't have anything. So I was with one
of my friends who ended up getting arrested right next
to me. UM and I was giving someone sailing and
(36:09):
he said, Emily, get up there about to rush us.
And I had been given a shield that night because
the night before there was a woman who was who
had been tear gassed really really badly, and I gave
her like my personal gear. I had given away all
of my extra stuff, so I gave her my my stuff.
(36:30):
And someone came up to me earlier in the evening
and was like are you Emily and Asia, They're like
we made this for you, Like you helped my friend
last night. Um, and so this is for you. And
so I had a shield with me. I used my
shield to get up off of the ground and I
started to run and that's when I got tackled and arrested.
(36:51):
I had, you know, after looking at the video, I
remember feeling um, at least two knees on top of
me and um, you know, going back and thinking about it,
like I had a palm on top of my head.
I ended up with a black eye that I had
for like three weeks. Um. But someone was palming my
face into the pavement. Uh. And so you know, I
(37:16):
get up, I had a backpack on. They cut my
backpack off of me. The person, the officer that arrested me,
told me that I had tried to hit a police
officer with my shield. And I just like very calmly
and and politely said, you know, like, you know, look
proving that because I would never do anything like that,
(37:36):
Because I wouldn't. I was down there to help the
people that needed to be helped. I'm not a medic.
I never wore met a gear. I never claimed to
be a medic. You know, I was just there to
to assist in any way that I could both crowds
engaged in something of a fighting retreat for the better
part of two hours. When police would mass up for
a bulrush, protesters would launch fireworks into their riot line.
(37:57):
This disrupted them every time and seemed to even panics some. Eventually,
the police grew so weary of being blasted that they
pulled back and both crowds were able to escape pursuit.
At around twelve forty am, both crowds met up again,
just a couple of blocks away from the court House
and Justice Center. After two hours of constant fighting, hundreds
and hundreds of people were still together, organized and dangerous.
(38:18):
Despite everyone's weariness, there was tremendous excitement in the air
as the crowd of Portlanders reoccupied the parks and set
off celebratory fireworks in the center of the Elk Statue.
They gotten off fireworks again, celebrating for the first time
since the demonstrations had begun. On May twenty nine, Portland
protesters had what felt like a real victory. The police
(38:40):
and the federal agents had thrown everything in their arsenal
at a crowd that refused to disperse. People had held
their own against multiple riot lines and forced them to
back away for the first time ever a crowd kicked
out of the parks in front of the Justice Center
had succeeded in reoccupying those parks for a long time.
People just celebrate. Oh boy. In my own experience, July
(39:08):
four was the first night that did feel a little
like a revolution. And of course the coming days and
weeks would make it very clear that the fight was
far from over and that July four had been at
best a very temporary victory. But in the early hours
of it still felt like one uh where the grand
(39:33):
pops who couldn't fathom the obamasist, I don't hate America,
just to me, and she keeps some promisess looking like
the sixties. It's crazy, a nationwide dejabu what my people
post to do? Go to schools named after the clan
founder were around town? Is I don't see why were
frowning Native American students forced to learn about when o'pellah Sarah?
(39:53):
How is that fair? Bro? Some Euros unsung in some
monthsters get monuments built for them. But ain't be all
a little bit of monster We crook it h
Violence has a curious way of rendering you both more
resilient to and less tolerant of more violence. By the
start of July, every regular protester and press member in
the city of Portland had seen dozens of flash band
grenades detonate within feet of their heads. In June lo
One I was tear gas at least sixty times, and
there are literally thousands of other Portlanders who endured similar barrages.
(00:42):
We'd all run like hell from charging riot lines, which
isn't experience in and of itself. I've been to war
zones on two continents. I've been shot at, and I've
been shelled once, and I can honestly say that being
bul rushed by dozens of armored policemen ranks as among
the most frightening things I've ever experienced. It's certainly less
lethal than coming under sniper fire, but there's something uncontrollably
(01:02):
panic inducing about being chased by a wall of angry
men who want to harm you. The lizard part of
your brain starts firing, panic rises up in the primal
hinterlands of your brain. If you aren't careful, it takes
over completely. And even if you do stay in control
the adrenaline coursing through your system. It'll make your handshake,
It'll blur the parts of your mind to make coherent
(01:23):
thought possible. Portland protesters learned a lot through the month
of June, but one thing they didn't quite figure out
was how to stand up against a charging riot line.
They did learn a lot of other valuable things, though,
(01:45):
Tear gas went from something that instantly dispersed crowds to
more of a moderate annoyance. Some of this was a
product of people acquiring gas masks and respirators, but more
of it had to do with people learning how to
treat gas injuries, how to put out or throw back
smoking canisters, and most importantly, how not to panic while
choking on poison. One major way this information spread in
(02:06):
the early days were live streams. Conundrum, A blind journalist
who recorded soundscapes of the Portland riots recalls how she
used live stream audio to train herself up before going out.
And I had been, you know, since like the first week,
helping out in ways I can sort of from behind
the scenes constantly. It took until middle you know, because initially,
(02:28):
when all this started going down, you know, here in Portland,
I was like, how can I be involved? You know,
logic brain is going, Okay, Katie, you're blind. Not safe
for you to go out there. You know, all of
all of these reasons why blind person probably running through
clouds of tear gas not not the greatest idea you've
ever had. Um. And so it was like, Okay, Well,
(02:50):
what are the other ways I can I can support
the community at large and specific people who I know
that are out there. Well, for one, I got that
stimulus check and I didn't need it, so I'm like,
who needs gear? Um? So donating into different organizations that
was one way that I could help very easily. In
my position. I live by myself. I live like a
(03:11):
student because I am a student and I yeah, um,
also supporting friends that I had who were out on
the ground, like sitting there watching all of the live
streams and like following all of you guys that were
out there on the ground since day one. Like I'm
sitting there up all night every night, eight nights a
week because some number of my friends are out every night, right,
(03:35):
And so as stuff gets started, I start pulling up
every stream that I could find. So, yeah, that was
a lot of what I would be doing is having
multiple live streams playing at the same time, like listening
to the audio's Obviously, I can't see what's happening in
the videos, so I mean I was not as effective
as somebody who could actually see the pictures, obviously, and
that tiny regard. I can't see the pictures people are
(03:57):
tweeting out or what's in them. But you know, me
and some of my friends had some groups set up
where I wasn't the only one doing this, and we
would sort of share the information with each other first
before passing it on to the people who were, you know,
out and about, like, hey, guys, maybe stay away from
Third and managed and there's reports of fascists in a
truck with u S flags like don't go around, there's
a guy with a gun, you know, stuff like that.
(04:18):
Once people were actually out on the ground getting tear
gas and grenated and charged on a regular basis, they
started coalescing into groups based on what they were particularly
interested in doing to help out. For Chris and a
number of his colleagues, that meant learning to work as
a team of medics. This kid out a broken shoulder, um,
and there's a bunch of people crowding around being like
(04:40):
I'm medic, but I've only got water and band aids
and stuff. Um. And I wandered up and I said, Hi,
my name's Chris. UM, I have triangle band just would
you like one? And so I met a medic friend
that way, and then I met all of their medic
friends and it's like, well we should keep in contact.
You guys have signaling made like a small signal group. Um.
And then I started to meet other medics and like
(05:01):
get their signal information and met other medics that we're
doing the same thing. And so we all kind of
like everybody kind of met like five medics and all
five medics new another five medics and so it all
kind of um coalesced like that. UM. So there's a
lot of independent medics. But really there are these medic groups,
and within the internal communications that we have, we usually
(05:24):
have like a few people like one or two people
from each group. Like I'm with PAM. I know other
medics that are with PAM that are in like uh
you know, in communication. Um. And then you know there's
the e walks and we'll know some e walks and
well if I can't get ahold of the walks, I
know somebody you can. If I can't get ahold of
(05:46):
rose hips, I know somebody you can. UM. And so
we do all try and talk to each other. UM.
We try and talk to each other on the day
of to make sure that you know, like we're all
on the same page because different medics sceptor styles UM.
And then another reason that's so important is because especially
in emergency medicine UM, you're taught how to deal with
(06:07):
like bio hazards, situations, you know, things where you need
to triage things where there's a lot of patients at once,
and there's a lot of people coming from different places
to be medics, and you have to learn you know
who's above you, who's below you, so that you're not
stepping at each other's does and getting each other's way.
And so learning what everyone's scope of practices was very important.
And that's just kind of a standard question that we ask.
(06:29):
Now if you meet somebody that you haven't met, they're like, oh,
medic would be like, oh hey, cool, my name's Chris.
UM has trained as an m t uh, if you
don't mind me asking what's your scope of practice? Because
sometimes there are people will be like, oh yeah, I've
been taking care of my mom for like five years,
but I have no formal training and be like, all right, cool,
I'm gonna keep that in mind so that when something happens,
you know, I don't ask someone like, hey, grab my
(06:50):
sand's plant and mold it for me. I can be like, hey,
hold my flashlight, guy, um. Or sometimes you know, we
know a lot of people get tear gas. Those people
are really good because flushing eyes isn't hard, and I
can teach somebody out the flush eyes, um, and that way,
if we've got those people flushing eyes and then someone
else has like a broken bone, I can deal with that.
(07:12):
There were small emergent groups who brought shields, others who
brought traffic cones and water jugs to douse tear gas,
and others who showed up with food and protective gear
to hand out to protesters. A number of disabled activists
who did not feel they could safely participate in toe
to toe confrontations with riot lines, filled valuable logistic roles
making sure that front liners had ample water, respirator filters,
(07:34):
and food. Juniper was one of hundreds of people who
took it upon themselves to see that the Portland protests
were supplied with what they needed. I was able to
UM feel like I could go and drop off supplies
like I have. You know, I am a middle class,
upwardly mobile white person, UM, and I have some money,
(07:56):
and there are people out on the front lines putting
their bodies and live on the line. And so I
was like, I'm gonna go give some snacks to people
and get some water and just some other other protective
equipment and things that I had that I knew could
be useful. Other small groups helped coordinate aid and raise
attention for actions online. One of these organizations was pop
Mob or Popular Mobilization, who formed early on in the
(08:19):
Trump administration after a series of disastrous and bloody dueling
rallies between fascist and anti fascist protesters in Portland. Pop
Mob acted as a sort of unifying bridge for different
local anti fascist groups, with a focus on getting the
word out to large groups of what they called everyday
anti fascists. These were people who weren't hardcore activists but
(08:40):
didn't want Nazis marching around their city when Portland's BLM
movement took off, Though Effie Baum and their colleagues at
pop Mob decided they should take a less visible support role,
so mostly just retweeting things and then UM when people
would share events with us, boosting those events or boosting
different affinity groups that were involved in the nightly protests,
and UM really just kind of providing a UM UH
(09:05):
basically a signal boost to the people that we're doing
organizing UM and specifically like focusing only on trying to
boost UM bipoc led efforts, especially given all of the
conversation around UM white anarchists and UM you know, co
opting the movement or the you know, media like to
(09:27):
blame everything on white anarchists, which then takes away the
autonomy and disempowers the people that were in fact organizing
those events and the very real anger UM and justified
anger behind those events. And so we also did not
want to UM contribute to that narrative in any way,
shape or form. So we really made a very intest
(09:50):
intentional efforts to UM operate exclusively in a supportive role.
A lot of us were there UM many nights, and
UM continue to go out many nights, but UM the
organization as a whole did not have an organizational presence
as organizers. One of the you know, goals that we
(10:15):
would you know, have is pushing back against kind of
this like white supremisist culture that we have all that
we all participate in every day. And so that was
one of the main reasons we did not want to
take any kind of lead in the organizing is because
it's one thing when we are coming out and organizing
(10:39):
against jere like Joey Gibson and Patriot Prayer Um who
you know, the proad Boys and those groups target a
lot of different marginalized and vulnerable populations from you know,
many different UM groups, and so in a sense you
could look at it say that that the work is
(11:01):
similar UM. But at the same time, I think that
it's important for the people who are most affected to
be the voices that people are hearing, and especially because
we've seen how much that the media has latched onto
trying to discredit those voices by painting it as angry
(11:23):
white anarchists. As the days and weeks wore on Portland,
protesters grew hardened and increasingly effective at standing up to
police violence. Tear gas and grenades stopped working to disperse crowds,
Pepper balls, little paintball style projectiles filled with mace and
fired from a paintball gun. Likewise, lost their effectiveness As
shields became more common, police bulrushes remained the most effective
(11:44):
tactic for dispersing crowds, especially since by late June most
of those crowds were quite small. Portland protesters started gathering
on Telegram, an anonymous messaging app, in order to coordinate
and pass on intelligence. During events. People would warn each
other of police charges in the presence of riot trucks.
Before and after events, they would dissect their performance and
(12:05):
discuss ways to improve. Near the end of June, they
started talking about how protesters might form their own shield wall,
something that could stand up against police charges. Now, in
between numerous knights of reporting on riots, my partner Elaine Kinchin,
spent hours browsing through those conversations and watching is people
worked out how to defend themselves from charging officers. I'm
(12:26):
gonna throw you over to e Lane now explaining how
that process came together. Well, since that our the beginning
of the protests, there had been various diagrams that were
circulating on the Internet. A lot of them came from
things that had been done in Hong Kong, so different
diagrams of roles that protesters could take two more effectively
(12:47):
protect each other. Some of those involved laser pointers, and
some of them involved shields or helmets or supply line stuff.
And so those have been being circulated throughout all of June,
both on protester telegram channels and also on Twitter and
other communication channels. And as the charges than bullrushes and
(13:10):
stuff really heated up and more people were being injured
and the police brutality was becoming more intense, a lot
of those discussions and how to effectively implement them would
be happening after protests had wound down or during the day,
and so I would follow and read through all sorts
(13:31):
of different threads where people were posting images of how
to do Roman style turtleshelf formations with overlapping shields, or
could make an effective vault to block the people behind
them from police munitions to more effectively protect all the
peaceful protesters who are in the back. All these different
emergent groups that form to handle different tasks within the
(13:53):
movement are what is called affinity groups. This is a
fairly old concept within anarchist organizing. Here, our friends at
the Youth Liberation Front or Wild Left explain the context again.
Because President Trump and numerous right wing media figures have
repeatedly called for their imprisonment or execution, we've hired voice
actors to reread the things they said to us rather
than risk exposing their identities. So an affinity group is
(14:16):
usually like five to tend people who share some affinity,
and it's the preferred method for anarchist organizing because it's small,
it's informal, and usually non hierarchical, and usually horizontally organized. Yeah,
and um, it's uh. I think it's been preferable to
like the large organization model that we attempted and just
failed because there's no accountability and there's no way to
(14:38):
ensure that. Like, everyone was cool with each other and
when problems came up, they just sucked us over. We
spoke to one anonymous activist who had no experience with
anarchist organizing prior to the summer of She started coming
out to Portland protests earlier in the summer with her friends.
So the first time I went out to one of
the nightly protests, I went with a couple of friends
that I've known since I was like eighteen or nineteen
(15:00):
because they had been going out and I felt comfortable
being with them. Um, they don't come out anymore. Once
her friends stopped going, she floated around different crews of activists,
experimenting with different affinity groups, but eventually deciding that she
preferred an even more decentralized approach to protesting. As far
as you know, like my length of knowledge, an affinity
(15:22):
group is just you know, a decentralized group of people
that you can uh form ideas with and kind of
go over maybe like safety tactics and different things like that. Um.
But I kind of quickly realized that affinity groups weren't
necessarily for me. UM. I think that sometimes it can
(15:43):
get complicated fairly quickly, and so I still go down
to the protests by myself. Since I've been doing this
for as long as I have, it doesn't take me
very long to run into somebody that I know. And
sometimes I feel like having someone that's worried about my
safety can be a bit of a hindrance sometimes, I
(16:05):
you know, having to like be on a radio consistently
and and always be on my phone to make sure
that I'm you know, in communication with different people. I
don't want anybody to have to worry about if I'm
going to be fine, because I'm going to be fine.
So yeah, I mean I I just I usually go
down by myself. I think that the network of affinity
(16:28):
groups has been a positive thing. You know. The people
that have been around and experienced the most have that
information that they can share with one another. One major
advantage of anarchist organizing tactics is that it makes anarchist
groups harder to infiltrate and disrupt. Between nineteen fifty six
and nineteen seventy one, the FBI instituted a counter intelligence
(16:50):
program nicknamed co intel Pro at the orders of Director
j Edgar Hoover. The program was initially targeted at the
US Communist Party, but was quickly extended to all kinds
of left wing activist organizations, particularly the Black Panthers. Hoover's
goal with co Intel Pro was to increase factionalism caused
disruption and wind defections. He wanted to spread such terror
(17:12):
among left wing activists that none of them would again
walk into a meeting without feeling like there must be
FBI agents in the room. Co Intel Pro was incredibly successful,
and while the program officially ended in nineteen seventy one.
The tactics the FBI pioneered in this period have been
used by a variety of law enforcement agencies ever since.
Even organizations like the Portlands Chapter of the Black Panthers,
(17:33):
whose more radical programs included free breakfast for neighborhood kids
and dental care for all, earned the ire of co
intel pro In an interview last year, chapter co founder
Kent Ford recalled a journalist sharing with him plots from
the FBI to poison the produce the Panthers would use
to feed hundreds of kids every morning. As a result,
it is impossible to take part in any kind of
mass anti government action and not feel like there are
(17:56):
probably federal agents in your miss. Organizing by affinity groups
helps to negate some of the advantages the state has.
It's impossible to know that any mass group of hundreds
(18:16):
of people doesn't include undercover cops, but it is very
possible to know that you and your four or five
close buddies aren't cops. The only organizing that occurs in
the open at a large scale event is very basic
and not legally incriminating. I e. We're gathering at this
park at eight PM, hearing speeches, and then marching at nine.
On most occasions, either a specific organizer will pick the
(18:37):
direction for that week's march or a vote will be
taken as to the destination. The decision to take part
in any illegal activity, acts of property destruction in the
like is made by these small, independent affinity groups and
sometimes just individuals on their own. Often only two or
three groups out of a three person march will actually
engage in serious law breaking. The others are there to shout,
wave signs and stand up to confront the police when
(19:00):
they inevitably arrive. This method of organization does have a
number of weaknesses, which we will discuss in subsequent episodes,
but it has proven more resilient to state surveillance than
being part of an organization with a strict hierarchy. One
major aspect of this is that many more dedicated Portland
protesters take something called security culture very seriously. Here's the
y I left again. Security culture. Uh, security culture, I
(19:24):
think is it's interesting the risks you are taking and
what precautions need to take to be safe. Were like
because like, not every risk is going to have the
same consequences, and so it's being able to judge those,
um and like if you do something that's questionable, possibly illegal,
don't talk about it, don't don't incriminate yourself, keep your
mouth shut, don't incriminate others. I mean, Um, there's just
(19:47):
a crime Think article called what is security Culture? I
believe and that's like a great introduction for people who
don't know. It's a very important part of like really
any movement because if you have bad security culture and
you're putting yourself at risk or or the organizers at risks,
you're going to disrupt a movement because you're going to
get people in trouble. So like that definitely plays like
(20:07):
don't let you know, don't talk about things you did,
don't photograph things you did. You can like you know,
don't don't bring your phone if that's the thing you're
able to do, because like they could track you, and
Feds in Portland literally clone phones and have like you know,
they can just pinpoint you. So that's another thing where
it's like yeah, basically it's knowing the risk and knowing
how to safely protect yourself from those risks. That Zene
(20:29):
what is security Culture? We like to make sure to
send it to all everyone who wants to get involved
with us. That's like the first thing. Yeah, it's the
most basic thing that we send. None of these security
measures were enough to protect people from being arrested by
cops during actions. It doesn't matter how solid your digital
security is or how trustworthy your friends are if a
cop charges that you faster than you can run away,
(20:51):
But good security culture can prevent activists from being arrested
after actions. See the United States is filled to hell
and back with cameras when protest sterre's damage or destroy property.
While protesting police will spend weeks trying to identify the
individuals responsible. This is a big part of why black
block has evolved as a tactic. If everyone is dressed
basically identically, with their features covered and no logos or
(21:13):
tattoo showing, it's much more difficult for police to identify
people after an action. Going in block has disadvantages too,
though largely when it comes to optics. When you're properly
blocked up, it will be difficult or impossible to determine
your race. As a result, police and local politicians in
Portland tended to blame the activities of blocked up crowds
on white anarchists alleging that the city's Black Lives Matter
(21:36):
movement had been hijacked by white kids who just wanted
to break things. Kosca, an Indigenous Portlander who has been
arrested by this point at least ten times, pushed back
against that characterization. Definitely a narrative that works because people
believe it, and people keep repeating it, even some people
of color. I hear repeating it. But I know for
a fact it's not true, because because I've been doing
(21:59):
this with, you know, people in Black Block for several
years and have gotten to know lots of people, and
I have never ever seen so many people of color
in block before, and particularly Native people, you know, like
the just the native people in block is a huge
amount compared, you know, compared to the population the general
(22:24):
population of the area. So yeah, I think it's I
think you could even say it's races to say that
everyone in Black Block is white. In September, after more
than four months of nightly protests, the Justice Department launched
a criminal inquiry targeting the leaders of organizations responsible for
anti police brutality protests across the nation. Homeland Security Secretary
(22:45):
Chad Wolf told Fox News what we know is that
we have seen groups and individuals moved from Portland to
other parts of the country. I also found a very
poorly written USA Today article on the subject and includes
this paragraph. Asked why leaders of Antifa, a loosely organized
dream far left ideology, and Black Lives Matter formed in
part to call attention to violence against black communities, had
(23:05):
not been arrested, Wolf said, this is something I talked
to the a G personally about and I know that
they are working on it. So far, these investigations have
been markedly unsuccessful. Leaked reports later in the year revealed
that the Department of Homeland Security thought that Antifa was
an organized group with a structured leadership cast that could
be identified and arrested. No evidence of this was ever
(23:25):
turned up. Would suggest that this sort of decentralized organizational
tactic is at least harder for law enforcement to penetrate.
The vast majority of affinity groups don't exist to organized
window breaking, fire starting, or any of the other things
the media love to focus on in their coverage of
Portland protests. At their most basic level, affinity groups are
a safety tool. Cop rights can be incredibly dangerous, and
(23:47):
everyone considering going into such a situation should have buddies
who are there to watch your back and render aid
if you get hurt. Obviously, not everyone interested in participating
in protests had friends who are willing to go out
with them. Inter Comrade Collective an organization that formed in
the middle of the protest to help match loan activists
with buddies they could protest with for the night. And so, um,
(24:10):
the first time I had met up with Comrade Collective,
it was funny because like, you know, I had all
this like anxiety and stuff, and uh, I remember thinking like,
oh my god, I'm so uncomfortable, like I don't know
these people. And then I was like I'm totally not
going to meet up with them again because I was like,
I'll just stay by myself. Um, here we are. But
but it was like it was when I when I left,
(24:34):
and um, one of our other comrades, uh like messaged
me and was like are you home and like I
wasn't expecting that, and I was like what And I
was like, oh my god, that's awesome. And then just
like getting used to like the checking in, you know,
to make sure like they're not arrested or didn't get
attacked by you know, fascists or whatever, and so just
(24:57):
kind of like, um, I think just getting exposed to
like people, I'm like, oh my god, these are like
strangers that I don't know that like give a ship
about my well being and so that kind of in
turn makes you care more about yourself like and then
also want to do the same for others. And I
(25:19):
also I'm one that likes that tends to stray from
the group. So like, I'm definitely like comfortable by myself
in certain situations, but I still I even if I'm separated,
I just I like to know that there is someone
out there that like I can hit up or whatever
or check in with, even if we're not like together
(25:40):
at that moment. By the start of July, all the
ingredients were in place for Portland's protest movement to display
its first real meaningful resistance to the violent might of
a police riot line. Protests had seriously waned in the
days prior to the fourth, with just a few dozen
people showing up most nights, but the holiday, and more
to the point, the fact that shiploads fireworks were on
sale for the holiday, brought a massive crowd of more
(26:03):
than a thousand Portlander's out to the city parks in
front of the Justice Center and the Mark O. Hatfield
Federal Courthouse. In the days that followed DHS Director Chad
Wolf's announcement that rapid deployment teams were being sent to
Portland's activists had been on the lookout for Feds. They'd
been visible inside the I R. S Building across the
street from the Justice Center. Reporters had taken several photographs
(26:23):
of men in heavy military body armor carrying rifles, but
until the fourth none of those men had actively engaged
with a protest. My team, Beatrix, Selaine, and Garrison and
I all arrived in front of the Justice Center at
around nine pm. The energy in the air was as
apparent as the smell of gunpowder. People were setting off fireworks,
mostly mortars, at random in and around the crowd. We
(26:52):
hated it at first, after weeks of being repeatedly flashbanged
by cops. We were all just ridiculously on edge. The
first thing I saw upon a rifle was a pile
of American flags burning in a concrete pit that had
once held a massive elk statue. For several nights in
a row, protesters had set fires in and around the
elk statue, not out of anger, but out of a
desire to stay warm, and one assumes for the joy
(27:14):
of setting fires. Eventually, the city removed the elk out
of fears that it might collapse and injure somebody. Protesters
loved the elk statue, though, and began constructing a series
of fasimilar elk statues. On the fourth it was a
tiny model of a baby elk sandwiched in between billowing flames.
While the flags burned, protesters chanted Black Lives Matter. As
(27:38):
more folks arrived, more fireworks were set off. At first,
people simply stood in the street in front of the
Justice Center, aiming fireworks straight into the air to provide
their incarcerated friends with the show. This was not universally
popular behavior, because again, at least half the crowd was
dealing with the opening salvos of pretty serious PTSD. At
this point, of course, the fireworks continued, and once they
(28:11):
hit a certain frequency, everyone's brains kind of gotten numb
to the effect. If I can be honest, it started
to be fun. Some individuals and affinity groups within the
crowd had brought lasers to shine into the giant camera
that had been installed out in front of the Justice Center.
By ten PM, the fireworks usage had grown more militant,
(28:33):
and people were shooting dozens of commercial grade fireworks straight
into the Justice Center, breaking several windows. At least one
prisoner inside was seen waving excitedly out to the crowd,
which provoked rejoicing outside the fire where sparrage continued, with
protesters aiming occasional salvos at the Federal courthouse too. At
(28:55):
around ten PM, the police finally showed up your justice
in the building we crooket. Virtually all the people out
(29:25):
on the fourth were by this point hardened the police violence.
They've been trained by weeks in the streets to do
exactly the opposite of whatever the police l rad told
them to do, true to form. They surged forward at this,
moving in force into the intersection between the courthouse and
Justice Center. More and more fireworks were launched at both buildings.
As I moved forward, sensing imminent tear gas, I heard
one person behind me say they shouldn't have said anything.
(29:48):
Look what happens when they talk. At ten forty one pm,
I started live streaming. Almost immediately after that, Federal agents
inside the courthouse started dumping tear gas out of holes
in the walls of the courthouse. Yeah, that's yeah. So
basically they so far people were shooting it. Ship noted
(30:09):
fireworks of uh, and they gave a warning, and people
kept firing fireworks And now it looks like SuDS are
out and shooting tear gas into the square. The crowd
backed up, but did not disperse. Instead, they retreated to
the parks, washed each other's eyes out, and continued to
(30:32):
shoot fireworks at both buildings. After a few minutes, they
marched forward again into the intersection. No one knew it
at the time, but with the first federal tear guest
deployment and the decision of protesters to continue advancing on
the courthouse, a series of events had been set into
motion that would turn Portlands into one of the biggest
(30:53):
stories in the country, lead to hundreds of arrests and
several near fatal injuries. I don't believe any of the
people in the c that night particularly wanted that to happen.
I certainly saw no evidence of a concerted plan. Instead,
what I saw was a community of battered people who
had just spent weeks being gassed and grenaded and beaten
with truncheons and arrested for crimes as minor is standing
(31:14):
in an intersection with a sign. They had started coming
out to protest police brutality and wound up repeated victims
of it, and now over the course of June they'd
gotten good at resisting it. Each person there had learned
tactics to mitigate police riot control agents. They'd come to
trust their fellow Portlanders, and now finally there were enough
of them out again to put up serious resistance to
(31:34):
the cops. And they had sacks full of commercial grade
fireworks to throw back at the thin blue line shooting
grenades at them. With all that psychic weight behind them,
there was simply no way this crowd was going to
back down to the demands of police or federal agents. Instead,
the massive Portlanders swarmed the front steps of the federal
courthouse that had just gassed them. They began launching fireworks
(31:55):
directly into its facade, shattering some of the windows higher up.
The street level windows were all covered in plywood, and
those plywood walls had several hinged slits on them that
federal agents inside could flip open to shoot from. I
started calling the murder holes after similar features built into
medieval castles. The term stuck minutes went by. Federal agents
would occasionally fire pepper balls into the crowd, but eleven
(32:17):
PM came and went without another major show of force.
At around eleven o five, the police started dumping gas
or smoke out of the side door of the Justice Center.
The Feds dropped more gas out too, but instead of dispersing,
the crowd moved back in an orderly fashion. Front liners
with umbrellas and shields moved to the front and deflected
pepper balls, while medics washed out eyes and people with
gas masks and respirators ran into the cloud to throw
(32:40):
more fireworks at the courthouse. Yeah, that's drops roping it
out of the wind, obviously, how the fire we're going
off there. The whole situation evolved into something very much
like a siege here one the murders w as a
(33:02):
medieval crime, I think. So that's here they're screweding out
from the trees. So we definitely have like an old
fashioned medieval seed too, sort of crowd getting their fears. Uh,
you see a crowd getting their shields to the front.
You see the defenders firing had a murder hole. You
(33:22):
see fire, you know, pilots shot into the fence. This
is Jesus Christ. Yeah, Friday night, everybody putday night. I
I can't tell what smoked from fireworks and what's tear gas.
I think the FEDS and the police had expected that
(33:42):
gas and pepper balls would suffice to force the crowd away,
but the crowd kept advancing. Dedicated teams would run up
with traffic cones and put out gas grenades. Eventually, the
FEDS and the Portland Police were forced to bombard both
parks just to push the crowd away. Yeah wow, okay
is going wild. Somebody's riding a bicycle with a shield
(34:04):
to the crowd. Fires, fire and bath behind us. Let's
go through here here. Eventually the FEDS and the police
made a decision more gas. It was the most gas
deployed in Portland since tear gas Tuesday. Despite being doused
with gas, the crowd did not scatter. When I washed
my eyes out and was able to look around, I
(34:24):
saw hundreds of people still arraided for battle and ready
to go. The police and federal agents both came out
and forced that night. They marched forward, pumping out gas
and pepper balls and smoke grenades. The crowd was forced
back foot by foot, but they held together. I think
DHS had expected that the presence of federal agents and
military gear would have rattled protesters more, but activists just
(34:44):
treated them like more cops. The sight of fully armored
soldiers in military gear was unsettling, especially since no one
at the time had any idea what agency they were with.
Look at these guys, we got army guys. Look at
guys here. The combined FEDS and police succeeded in splitting
the crowd in two through a combination of walls of
gas and bulrushes, but both groups held together and proceeded
to lead law enforcement on a two hour chase through
(35:07):
the streets of Portland. There were moments of shocking brutality
where police would tackle protesters and dragged them on their
backs across asphalt into clouds of gas to arrest them.
One protester we interviewed was arrested that night. She'd shown
up as a shield bearer and had been one of
the people protecting the crowd from incoming fire. Yeah. Yeah,
the Fourth of July was wild. You know. I think
(35:27):
we everyone went into that night knowing like, you know,
this is the fourth of July. It's going to be
a fairly big night. The protests for really, they were
going strong. And I showed up before the sun went
down and was just kind of doing the thing that
I had been doing the entire time leading up to
that point, which is, you know, I was far enough
away from the police that I could be there if
(35:49):
anyone got tear gas to help them with sailine or
something like that. Um and I had been coming out
each night with like extra gear to hand out to
people that didn't have anything. So I was with one
of my friends who ended up getting arrested right next
to me. UM and I was giving someone sailing and
(36:09):
he said, Emily, get up there about to rush us.
And I had been given a shield that night because
the night before there was a woman who was who
had been tear gassed really really badly, and I gave
her like my personal gear. I had given away all
of my extra stuff, so I gave her my my stuff.
(36:30):
And someone came up to me earlier in the evening
and was like are you Emily and Asia, They're like
we made this for you, Like you helped my friend
last night. Um, and so this is for you. And
so I had a shield with me. I used my
shield to get up off of the ground and I
started to run and that's when I got tackled and arrested.
(36:51):
I had, you know, after looking at the video, I
remember feeling um, at least two knees on top of
me and um, you know, going back and thinking about it,
like I had a palm on top of my head.
I ended up with a black eye that I had
for like three weeks. Um. But someone was palming my
face into the pavement. Uh. And so you know, I
(37:16):
get up, I had a backpack on. They cut my
backpack off of me. The person, the officer that arrested me,
told me that I had tried to hit a police
officer with my shield. And I just like very calmly
and and politely said, you know, like, you know, look
proving that because I would never do anything like that,
(37:36):
Because I wouldn't. I was down there to help the
people that needed to be helped. I'm not a medic.
I never wore met a gear. I never claimed to
be a medic. You know, I was just there to
to assist in any way that I could both crowds
engaged in something of a fighting retreat for the better
part of two hours. When police would mass up for
a bulrush, protesters would launch fireworks into their riot line.
(37:57):
This disrupted them every time and seemed to even panics some. Eventually,
the police grew so weary of being blasted that they
pulled back and both crowds were able to escape pursuit.
At around twelve forty am, both crowds met up again,
just a couple of blocks away from the court House
and Justice Center. After two hours of constant fighting, hundreds
and hundreds of people were still together, organized and dangerous.
(38:18):
Despite everyone's weariness, there was tremendous excitement in the air
as the crowd of Portlanders reoccupied the parks and set
off celebratory fireworks in the center of the Elk Statue.
They gotten off fireworks again, celebrating for the first time
since the demonstrations had begun. On May twenty nine, Portland
protesters had what felt like a real victory. The police
(38:40):
and the federal agents had thrown everything in their arsenal
at a crowd that refused to disperse. People had held
their own against multiple riot lines and forced them to
back away for the first time ever a crowd kicked
out of the parks in front of the Justice Center
had succeeded in reoccupying those parks for a long time.
People just celebrate. Oh boy. In my own experience, July
(39:08):
four was the first night that did feel a little
like a revolution. And of course the coming days and
weeks would make it very clear that the fight was
far from over and that July four had been at
best a very temporary victory. But in the early hours
of it still felt like one uh where the grand
(39:33):
pops who couldn't fathom the obamasist, I don't hate America,
just to me, and she keeps some promisess looking like
the sixties. It's crazy, a nationwide dejabu what my people
post to do? Go to schools named after the clan
founder were around town? Is I don't see why were
frowning Native American students forced to learn about when o'pellah Sarah?
(39:53):
How is that fair? Bro? Some Euros unsung in some
monthsters get monuments built for them. But ain't be all
a little bit of monster We crook it h
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