November 30, 2020 • 33 mins
How did a bunch of angry strangers turn into a movement capable of braving unprecedented showers of tear gas and state violence? In this episode, we learn how a chaotic mass of protesters organized themselves into a unit capable of standing up to the worst violence the cops could throw at them.
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 (00:00):
Police grow do not interfere with the officer instructions, he
will be sus A four scud embatations and riottral agents
stay back. By the time protests kicked off in Portland,
(00:22):
protesters in Minneapolis had burned down the Third Precinct and
several other buildings. But as it turns out, Portland was
actually the first city in the country to declare a
riot over the protests after George Floyd's death. This has
more to do with the way that Portland police declare
riots than the objective standard of unrest, and now many
months later, Portland police still declare riots on a fairly
(00:44):
regular basis. It seems that Portland is set on having
the first and last riot of the protests. So what
happened that turned relatively normal BLM actions in Portland, which
were happening in every major American city into a movement
that still draws out crowds today. I'm Robert Evans and
this is Uprising, a guide from Portland. My partners in
(01:07):
this series are a team of local Portland journalists Garrison Davis,
Donovan Smith, b Lake, and Elaine Kitchen. We wrote this
series together and they'll be handling most of the narration.
For this episode, you'll be hearing more from me too,
as we've embedded audio from several of the live streams
I recorded during cop riots. Right now, I'm going to
hand the mic off to Donovan Smith. He's reported on
(01:29):
politics and social justice for a wide variety of local publications,
and he helped produce a documentary on gentrification. Here's Donovan.
After the first night of quote unquote rioting in Portland's,
a state of emergency was declared and a curfew was
imposed from eight pm to six am, with the express
interests of cracking down all mass gatherings of protesters. When
(01:50):
asked if the curfew will be enforced if someone was,
for example, to go grocery shopping, the Mayor's office replied, quote,
the city is not interested in citing people who are
lying about their business, causing no harm and uninvolved in
criminal conduct. Quote. But it didn't require property destruction or
criminal conduct for the police to start attacking and arresting
protesters on Saturday. Even before the curfew. That Saturday, thousands
(02:16):
gathered outside the Justice Center, which had to become tradition
in Portland. People march around downtown and occupied the street
in front of the j C, the casual name given
to the Justice Center. Police came out a few times
throughout the day to try and get people off the street,
with mixed results. This culminated with the police and riot
gear tear gassing the streets and city parks around the
(02:37):
j C while bashing people in the head with truncheons,
all in broad daylight, hours before the curfew was said
to begin. Look at this top hitting with this. Look
at the look at this. Throughout downtown, some white vans
(03:00):
targeted the largest crowd of protesters they could find, launching
tear gas and stunt grenades into the crowd of people.
Regular city traffic was engulfed in clouds of gas on
streets which had not even been closed. Houses Portland are
sleeping intents were woken by flashbangs, gas and impact grounds.
As a clock struck eight pm. After telling and gassing
(03:21):
protesters for the better part of two hours, cops kettle
protesters onto a bridge, surrounding and arresting the entire crowd
for being out past curfew. A total of forty eight
arrests were made that night. Portland Mayor Tet Wheeler, upon
his return from visiting his sick mother extended the curfew
for yet another day. On Sunday, May one, the largest
crowd yet, ten thousand strong, marched across the burn Side
(03:43):
Bridge into downtown. As the marchers approached the end of
the bridge, cops were waiting on the other end, blocking
their path. Once the sheer size of the crowd became apparent,
the police turned tail and ran high, telling it back
to the Justice Center. The crowd followed them there and
attends hours long standoff allowed. Eventually, the crowd thinned out
enough that police were able to tear gas and flash
(04:04):
band grenade protesters into dispersing. That night was one of
the most terrifying evenings of the entire uprising, with the
officers hanging off of riot evans and grenading passers by
seemingly at random. Mayor Wheeler extended the curfew for yet
another day. At a press conference announcing his ascension, Wheeler
doubled down on his law and order stance, this time
(04:26):
with the help of Governor Kate Brown. I want to
be very clear that there are open lines of communications
between myself and the Governor personally, as well as between
our offices. There is coordination with the Superintendent of State
Police as well as the leadership of the National Guard UM.
(04:47):
I spoke to the Governor three or four times yesterday.
I did make the request on all three of those
occasions for support from the National Guard. The Governor had
alternative strategies that she suggested, including deploying more state police resources.
(05:09):
We subsequently asked for additional tools that could be used
in the field. That was agreed to by the Governor
and supported UM Based on last night, however, I agree
with what the U. S. Attorney has said, and I
agree with what my colleagues in the Portland Police Borough
have just confirmed with me, which is we do need
(05:32):
more resources. Come Monday, June one, there was a shift
in Portland protests. Instead of meeting at the Justice Center,
another crowd of thousands gather on the east side of
Portland's across from the river downtown at an aptly named
concert venue Revolution Hall. After some speeches, the crowd began
to march west toward downtown. The crowd near Defense with
(05:54):
a line of riot cotts behind the chain link. A
young black woman at the head of the march asked
an officer of the march to the j C. The
police said no, Eventually, the huge march headed back to
Revolution Hall and no tear gas was used. Now you
have to understand at this point a lot of the
crowd had just been the last three days getting horribly
(06:15):
tear gas, beat up and chased by the police. The
thought of doing a protest and march without being assaulted
by the cops felt like a nice change compared to
the last three nights. But that all changed the next day,
the day that would become infamously known as tear gas Tuesday.
Tear gas Tuesday sucked. Well. I had a full asthma attack. Um.
(06:38):
I had never been subjected to tear gas before, and
so I saw a cloud of tear gas, and I
saw a man fall down in the cloud of tear gas,
and he was struggling to get up, and so I
ran in and I kind of picked him up by
his shirt and then grabbed my eyes on and pulled
him out of there. And then I immediately had an
(06:58):
asthma attack. Um, and my buddy picked me up and yeah,
that's both out of there. That's Chris, a volunteer protests
medic and tear Gas Tuesday was actually his second night
out the brutality. He witnesses what got him to decide
to dedicate his whole summer to helping people in the streets.
I saw a girl get hit in the face with
(07:19):
trapnel and that was not okay. And then everybody's getting
tear gas and it was a mess. And it was
the infamous tear Gast Tuesday. And after that, I just
kind of decided that I needed to start coming out
with medical supplies because how that was handled, what people
were doing to provide medicine in that moment wasn't up
(07:42):
to a standard that I knew that I could provide.
But let's take a step back. Tear Gast Tuesday was
a noteworthy shift for Portland protests for a multitude of reasons.
It was the first day since Riot Night with no curfew,
with city officials even publicly admitting to the curfew being
in effective now, and it was the first day that
the protests noticeably began to splinter. Just like Monday the
(08:04):
day before, thousands sparks from Revolution Hall towards the fence,
which at this point surrounded several city blocks, including the
Justice Center, the Federal Courthouse, and Chapman in Loudesdale, the
two city parts which faced those buildings, only this time
just have the crowd turned back to Rev Hall, but
the other half set on chanting at the police behind
(08:25):
the chain link fence. The Portland Police issue repeated warnings
over louds because that protesters were not to touch defense
under threat of right munitions as might be predicted. The
santity of PPB sacred fence became an immediate source of ridicule.
Even as police followed through on their threats and as
members of the crowd dared to touch the fence, the
(08:46):
PPB once again deployed an outrageous amounted tear gas. And
it wasn't even the mounted teer gas that was fired
off that night, but how they fired it. Several times
Police rushed in multiple directions, all while firing off more
tear gas, eating a massive cage of poison. Police are
boxing and crowded on several sides and deploying munitions into
the crowd, flashbags and gas to see the antashes flag here.
(09:13):
Two other things stick out from tear gas susan, the
first of which was just how many motorists driving through
downtown were tear gas by Portland police them everywhere from
the rooftops hall side pump gas in County gas into
the crowd, shooting gas. Look, there's fucking tear gas. They're
(09:37):
sucking tear gas in the middle of traffic. That was
just fired from someone up on a rooftop into the
middle of traffic. Multiple times, people who are blinded by
gas while driving panic and lost control of their vehicles,
nearly hit people as they drove into crowds. Protesters were
water bottles and medical supplies render aid to drivers who
(09:58):
had crashed into the curves. Here, we have how many
cards there are here? All of these people are about
to get tear gas. Oh boy, they're just started arcing
them down at us from God and us where baby
on the roofs. They're just coming down from the sky.
People was trying to traffic coming them, trying to pick
them away, trying to stop them from gassing traffic. The
(10:20):
other thing that sticks out is the crowd's resilience was growing.
Protesters started adopting Tati scene in the Hong Kong Uprising,
like placing traffic cones over tear gas canisters and pouring
water through the top of the cone to get the
Bernie caranister out. We see people actually very effectively to
polling on tactics here to stop these tear gas grenades
(10:40):
from dropping brock Co tusters and from gassing vehicles. A
chance that became popular in the Whist to Come was
walked don't run, reminding people in times of panic often
the safest way out. It's just by walking calmly. More
experienced organizers are walking calmly through the crowd, putting hands
on people and saying do not run. Do not run,
(11:03):
because the thing that hurts people in situations like this
is panic. It's scary, but it probably won't seriously harm
you if you don't panic, and the police aren't going
to take any steps to try to avoid a stampede,
so the only way to avoid a stampede is again
for the crowd to take care of itself. We have
(11:23):
seen people get so much better at reforming the crowd
after being gassed. That started to really improve on Sunday night.
And look, most of the people are still here, still organized,
still marching, still many thousands of people. This is the
first time we've seen the best job of the crowd
staying together and really showing commitment and endurance uh in
(11:48):
the face of police brutality. So this has been a
very important and a very impressive night from the activists
and the citizens of Portland, Oregon. Chris will acquire a
gas asked the very next day sums of his feelings
about tear gas Tuesday like this. It was such an
odd response to see the police respond to a protest
(12:09):
about um police violence and brutality with police violence and brutality.
(12:30):
After tear gas Tuesday, things in Portland started to fall
into a pattern. During the day, there'll be massive peaceful
marches starting from Revolution Hall led by a new group
called Royal City Justice. At night, about a thousand protesters
would gather at the Sacred Fence, which now only surrounded
the Justice Center and the adjacent federal buildings, to inevitably
get tear gas and attacked by police for quote tapering
(12:53):
with the fence. Photo journalists and photographer Mariah says some
of her favorite moments of the protests were at the
massive march is organized by Royal City Justice in early June.
I would say, like in the early days, UM really
is some stuff that really is memorable to me, especially
with a lot of my UM favorite photos from this
(13:13):
whole um UM movement has come from the earlier days,
Like there was a moment I want to say it
was that Burnside Bridge when everyone was like laying down
for eight minutes and forty six seconds, and Um, I
got some good pictures of that, and it was just
really great to capture. UM. I think that the moment
when Damian Lillard came out, you know, everyone like you know,
(13:35):
had like this slub moment in this and I got it.
And at the moment actually when he came out, I
didn't even know he was out there, and so I
checked my photos later and I was like, oh, snap,
UM got him and stuff. Activists and live streamer Max
Smith attended both the larger daytime protests on the East
Side and the night protests at the j C. Here
he explains how he became a popular speaker at the
(13:56):
Portland protests and the interesting effect of having both the
daytime march and a nighttime action on the public. I
want to say it was the second or the third
that I actually got out in the streets um doing
the work with the security stuff and helping out with
the larger marches on the East Side, the Revolution Hall
things and all that. So I was kind of doing
(14:17):
playing a couple of rolls over there with helping with
the Guardian folks and doing some you know, political education
at the same time, and it's it kind of just
came natural. I just started talking to people and people
started listening to what I'm saying, and um, on the
night of the five, I got arrested downtown at the
j C um or near the around the area of
(14:41):
the j C. At least I got arrested down there.
And so that weekend I ended up giving a speech
at Irving Park and that's kind of where things started
ended up being like streamed on the news locally. So
that's where things kind of started changing for me at
that point. And can you talk to me about the
(15:04):
night you were arrested? Yeah, just kind of as much
detail as you're because you're interested in going in. Yeah,
that's fun my, you know, it was just a basic arrest. Um.
I was actually out there with a couple of people.
We had been going down a couple of nights to
see what was going on at the Justice Center because
you know, I have been you know, if you're just
watching the news, all you see is, you know, it
(15:24):
looks like one big march, right, Like it's one huge march.
It starts in the daytime and all of a sudden
it descends into madness at night. But quickly I realized
that there's there's multiple things that are going on. If
you leave your house, you know, you get the TV,
it's a lot that's going on in the streets. So
I started, you know, going out to see different things.
And we were down at the j C and things
got really gassy. It was one of the nights. So
(15:47):
again it was the first like you know, a few
days of gassing, and I had been down there before,
(16:10):
and this time I brought a couple different people that
were like, you know, I'm trying to see it, but
I'm scared. I was like, just come with me. I'll
show you what's going on. It's not that big of
a deal. But we ended up um catching up with
some other people down there and kind of had like
a little group and we were and there were a
lot of like teenagers down there, and so we were
actually making sure a lot of people got out because
(16:30):
there were cops everywhere, like circling and pulling people over
and stopping people and arresting him. So we were like
kind of helping folks navigate their way out and then um,
as it got late, there were a bunch of people
that were suffering from tear gas. And so myself in
a medic and I have like a first day to
training basic stuff, and so that those first nights I
was out there with like you know, milk or the
(16:52):
baking soda and water solutions and whatever else, just helping
folks out. And so we were following the groans of people,
you know, coughing and and being into tear gas, and
the cops just rolled up with like four cars and
eight officers hopped out and I got snatched up and
it's got snatched up by that. I got grabbed by
the hair, got young to the ground, bruised my elbow.
(17:14):
You know, I had to creeck on my neck for
a few days. But they arrested me. They drove me
around a squad car for like fifteen twenty minutes. They
picked up some other guy, Um, you know, they accused
him of drawing on a drawing on a window with
a sharpie or something, and he's like what and they
were like, you know, they were trying to charge him
(17:35):
with a felony. All of our charges got dropped. No
one got charged with anything. I got charged with obstructing
the police. He got charged with something else. As Mac
was inside the police car, he was also able to
get a sneak peek of how the police were targeting
people for a rest behind the scenes. I thought it
was crazy because they had this like thing in their car,
like this like a heads up display like a HUT
(17:56):
and it it it had like it had an airy
o view of this of the downtown grid and it
had like it was able to track people. And I
thought that was it was like a call of duty
to display like when you're like using like you know,
the helicopter or whatever. It was like that, and like
you could see like the people and they were like
I represented like as lights a kind of there was
(18:18):
like a light on them. It was like a it
was like a black and white display and you could
see the things that are moving. But then like with people,
it basically lit them up with like lights and circles.
It would a circle us um if we were in groups,
and when the group's got small enough and they would
like a turn green and the cops were just to
go and rest people. The group of protesters gathered at
(18:40):
the fence were quick to make a distinction between quote
peaceful protests and non violent protests. While the massive Rose
City justice marches remained peaceful, the crowds have to j
C would engage in nonviolent actions such as shaking, tearing down,
and cutting apart the chain link fence. Most of what
(19:05):
people did at the j C was just standing in
the street in parks while channey demands and slogans. But
it didn't require people to tamper with the fence or
throw a half drunk water bottles for the police to
respond with force. As this protester can attest, I was
downtown and it was back at the original fence, and
you know, there was probably I probably estimate like five
(19:26):
people there and everyone was really spread out, and um,
there was no police on the ground. It was raining
that night, and they had their floodlights like pointed at us. Um.
And one shot got fired from one of the like
the little balcony areas, the one that's farther to the right,
(19:47):
and it hit me in the leg. It was just
one shot and it hit me at the like the
very top of my left thigh. And I was just
standing there with a group of ends like I had.
There was a beach ball in the crowd that night
and it said don't gas me bro, And I picked
it up and I started writing on it, and one
shot got fired and it hit me in the leg.
(20:09):
And that was what I would consider to be at
least like protests related my first encounter with the Portland
Police Bureau. No one was doing anything, No one was,
you know, pushing on the fence or knocking on it,
and they just fired a shot into the crowd and
it hit me. Next you're going to hear from Garrison Davis.
(20:39):
He was just seventeen in Portland's vehle and protests started,
and for weeks he was out virtually every night, filming
some of the most intense police violence and posting some
of the most viral videos of the entire uprising. Here's Garrison.
Every night. The fence at the Justice Center seemed to
grow larger. The city doubled up some sections of the
chain link and stacked pieces offense on top of one another. Eventually,
(21:02):
concrete barriers were added to make it harder to knock
over the fence. The divides between protesters began to widen
as well. Some of the more radical leftist BLM activists
in Portland criticized Rosity Justice and their insistence on quote
peaceful protest over direct action that might damage police property.
Gregory McKelvey, vice chair of organ DEM's Black Caucus and
(21:24):
former organizer, pushed back on some of that criticism. Gregory
was also organizing on a new front, now as Protest
Gain Steam. He was in the home stretch of leading
a grassroots style campaign for political newcomer Sarah I on
our Own to take down incumbent Mayor Ted Wheeler. Many
Portlanders felt Wheeler had failed on his promise to deliver
fundamental change on issues of housing and please reform. Instead,
(21:47):
Wheeler became a symbol of big money in politics more
of the same. Gregory's candidate I on our Own ran
to the left of Wheeler, dubbing herself and quote everyday
anti fascist. So you know, uh, we had a situation
where tens of thousands of people were marching every day.
And if you're at those events, they're just beautiful, and yeah,
they're way more liberal, they're way more moderate. Um, but
(22:10):
those people are being marched along pun intended towards a
more radical place. And you know, Malcolm X said more
eloquently than me that basically, UM, you know everything, you know,
there was a point where you didn't UM. And so
these people are on their journey just as everybody else.
And just because they're not anarchists yet does not make
(22:30):
them agents of the state. UM. And I really think
that those protests are what effectively got us the UM
the twenty million defunded from the police. I mean, we
had a moment where they were mass protests and Damian
Lillard was at the front of a protest UM that
was in capturing the entire city. Now, if you're wondering,
(22:51):
yes he's talking about that, Davian Lillard, five time NBA
l Star and Portland's Trailblazers superstar point guard day mean Lillard, Yeah,
he was out there too. Yeah. They weren't burning stuff down, um.
And also some of their rhetoric was not, you know,
as far left as maybe I would like or and
and certainly that some people at the Justice Center would like.
(23:13):
But I actually do think those protests were more effective
and they certainly have far more support from the broad public.
And we were getting people at these protests who had
never protest before. Like I don't think the Justice Center
protests should have stopped. And I don't think that they're
ineffective per se um, but I think there's certainly much
more effective if in tandem. There's also the other protests
going on. So if I'm at home watching UM like
(23:37):
Chanel two, six, eight or twelve, which I had to
watch a lot for my job, UM, they're not making
a difference between which protesters are which protesters. They're just
saying protesters merged and Damian Lillard joined them. Later in
the night, protesters were gased and beaten. Right that that
UM way of explaining things is really helpful for all
(24:01):
the protesters because um, they see that protests with Damian
Lillard and they're like, oh, I support this, And then
they see what they think is the same people getting
gas that night, and they're like no, no, no, no no,
And that helps us move the conversation towards the funding
once those massive protests go away and we only have
protests that Damian Lillard is never going to be seen
at now. Uh now they have no support from the
(24:22):
broad public. Early June is also when most of Portland's
police reforms were achieved under large pressure both locally and
from the nationwide BLA movement. The Portland's Public schools superintendent
decided to end the school resource officer program, opting instead
for an increased spending on social workers, counselors and culturally
specific mentors for students, also historically racist. Portland's police unit
(24:47):
was also disbanded. Here's more on that from Gregory. We
got rid of some of the specialty units, including the
Gang Enforcement Unit are formerly known as the Gang Enforcement Unit,
which kept a list of mostly black individual tolls that
they thought were gang members. Um and it really was
a circle of our injustice car strol system um and
(25:09):
was really abhorrent and racist. And they switched their name
to the Gun Violence Production Team and a branding effort,
but still had the same mandate. We got rid of
that specialty unit. We defunded twenty something million dollars from
the police, which, um sounds like a lot, but we
were defunding from a lot of different bureaus because of
the pandemic in the budget shortfall in general. Alongside those
(25:31):
small reforms in early June, Portland also saw some negative
change on the road to police accountability. The officers responding
to protests were told they were allowed to cover both
their nametag and badge number amid fears officers would be
quote docked. Lawyer Alan Kessler explains this in greater detail. So, um,
(25:53):
there's a directive that says that the police shall display
their name on their uniform unless they get special dispensation
from their their command or to not do it. Um.
And the police are supposed to give you a business
card if you as they're supposed to identify themselves, are
supposed to give a business card which has their name
(26:13):
and badge number on it. Right there. It's not supposed
to be a secret police force. And the directives are
there are several directives that are kind of about that
uh interaction with the public. It turns out that very
early in the in the protests, there was a an
email that was sent out that told police that it's
(26:36):
okay for them to cover their badge and then replace
it with their It's called their personnel number or perner
um spelled either PRNR or p E r N r H.
And it's a it's a weird choice, like the only
the only thing it was used for before that was payroll.
(26:56):
It's in their accounting system. Oh and so historically it's
been used in the on some internal investigations of police
officers alike in internal review reports. Um. But the reason
they picked it, like, uh, I kind of guess this
at the time, but it was suit too silly to
be true. Was there is a There aren't a ton
(27:21):
of things that are exempt from the public records lot Oregon,
but one thing that is exempt is UH numbers on
an I D badge. Um. So somebody thought this through.
Somebody who is really familiar with the public records thought
this through and said, Okay, if we use the number
from the I D badge as the cops badge number,
(27:42):
then if anybody asked for the list, we'll say, no,
those are secret numbers. That are you know, we have
to keep them secret for the for the cops protection,
which is nuts because they're wearing it out in public
on their chest. But but there's like no way to
trace it back in a digital for in, no way
for us to for sure. The early marches had been
(28:06):
absolutely enormous, but almost everyone there fell into the simple
category of protester. There were some very overworked medics, but
Portland's lacked the sheer variety of specialties among the activists
that allowed Hong Kong's protest movement to persist for so long.
That changed over the first few weeks of the uprising,
(28:26):
as people who never thought of themselves as particularly radical
fell into new rules. There were no longer just street medics,
but shield bearing front liners, people armed with traffic cones
and water to douse tear gas. Other activists provided food
and equipment, and a handful of Portlanders began learning the
trade of the conflict journalist, while Portland's professional press got
(28:49):
used to packing body armor alongside their camera notebook. As
an any mass movement, there was bound to be disagreements
and in fighting. People had different opinions on everything from
looting to dumpster fires, to how much fence shaking was
acceptable and the usefulness of large marches that stayed completely peaceful.
Despite those differences, people did keep coming out day after day,
(29:10):
night after night, for the entire first half of June.
Some of those people are still coming out even now. Yeah.
I was six kind of personally expecting just for people
just to be maybe be protesting a week to you know,
not not much and then you know, quote unquote back
to normal life. But you know, yeah, and then it's
been now five months, um at it so yeah, and
(29:34):
I kept going because my I just felt really strongly
to keep going, and especially with um what I was doing,
um as for photographing at all, I just had this
passion that I was like, Okay, I gotta keep going.
So yeah, I've I haven't stopped. As June wore on,
the number of people out at nightly demonstrations began to drop.
Crowds of thousands became crowds of hundreds. A certain mania
(29:56):
took over the increasingly hardened core of the Portland BLM movement,
who seems to feel the need to confront police every
single night without pause. It exhausted many protesters and journalists.
Cosca describes the feeling, well, um, yeah, I mean it
was it was every night, and it was it was NonStop.
And I remember once, um when they when they when
(30:18):
they had the double fences up in front of the
Justice Center. I remember when some people walking away from
it and they were telling me that the protest was canceled,
and I said, there's no such things. Is canceling this?
I was like this to me, I was I even
said it on one of my videos and sound kind
of cheesy, but I was like, this feels like the
energy for this rebellion is coming from some some unknown place.
(30:43):
Like like I said, it's felt almost supernatural because it
was pushing people on their human limits. Like for me,
I'm not the kind of person that will, you know,
interrupt my sleep schedule for almost anything. But I didn't
really sleep or eat or drink as you're supposed to
do for almost two months because us so wrapped up
(31:05):
in yeah, what was happening. And then I didn't know
that for a while. I didn't know that other cities
were still protesting for a long time because I you know,
I didn't even have time to check the news because
it would take me. You know, since I'm older, it
takes me longer to recover from that of the whole
you know what, I would be recovering the whole time,
(31:26):
not protesting while I was not protesting, to be recovering
from protesting. That pretty much all I did for almost
two months. Looking back on the early days of the uprising,
you can see all the little things that happened in
order to transform this into more than just a regular
protest every day. The brutality from the previous night rekindled
people's desire for change. Repeated tear gassings forced the crowd
(31:48):
to get good at reforming after being dispersed. As the
days turned into weeks, protesters started mirroring Hong Kong tactics.
More and more established activist groups provided support for new
activists with new ideas. On June seventeenth, inspired by Seattle's
Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, Portland protesters announced plans for an
autonomous zone of their own. This a Z was limited
(32:11):
to a single city block in front of Mayor Ted
Wheeler's luxury condo, where protesters set up tents, eight pizza,
and played dance music late into the night. The Portland
police ousted the occupation early the following morning, but protesters
were clearly learning valuable lessons. Drinks, pizza, medical support, and
a speaker system arrived within the first hour of the occupation.
Barricades went up soon after, followed by the arrival of
(32:33):
the Autonomous zones very own porta potty. By the time
the police swept through in the early morning, a surprising
amount of infrastructure had been set down in a very
short amount of time. That action ultimately failed, but as
protests continued through the city, infrastructure would spring up again
and again. Throughout the first half of June, a framework
was put in place that would transform Portland's Black Lives
(32:55):
Matter protests into a movement that could hold on and
dig in for more than half a year. Uh Where
the grandpops who couldn't fathom the obamacist? I don't hate
America just to man, she keeps the promises twenty teens
looking like the sixties. It's crazy, a nationwide deja wo
what my people post to do? Go to schools named
(33:16):
after the clan founder. We're around town, isa, 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
heroes unsung in some monsters get monuments built for them.
But it ain't be all a little bit of monster.
We crook it. Man, Your heroes are worthless and man
can show private only God gives purpose. You crook it.
Police grow do not interfere with the officer instructions, he
will be sus A four scud embatations and riottral agents
stay back. By the time protests kicked off in Portland,
(00:22):
protesters in Minneapolis had burned down the Third Precinct and
several other buildings. But as it turns out, Portland was
actually the first city in the country to declare a
riot over the protests after George Floyd's death. This has
more to do with the way that Portland police declare
riots than the objective standard of unrest, and now many
months later, Portland police still declare riots on a fairly
(00:44):
regular basis. It seems that Portland is set on having
the first and last riot of the protests. So what
happened that turned relatively normal BLM actions in Portland, which
were happening in every major American city into a movement
that still draws out crowds today. I'm Robert Evans and
this is Uprising, a guide from Portland. My partners in
(01:07):
this series are a team of local Portland journalists Garrison Davis,
Donovan Smith, b Lake, and Elaine Kitchen. We wrote this
series together and they'll be handling most of the narration.
For this episode, you'll be hearing more from me too,
as we've embedded audio from several of the live streams
I recorded during cop riots. Right now, I'm going to
hand the mic off to Donovan Smith. He's reported on
(01:29):
politics and social justice for a wide variety of local publications,
and he helped produce a documentary on gentrification. Here's Donovan.
After the first night of quote unquote rioting in Portland's,
a state of emergency was declared and a curfew was
imposed from eight pm to six am, with the express
interests of cracking down all mass gatherings of protesters. When
(01:50):
asked if the curfew will be enforced if someone was,
for example, to go grocery shopping, the Mayor's office replied, quote,
the city is not interested in citing people who are
lying about their business, causing no harm and uninvolved in
criminal conduct. Quote. But it didn't require property destruction or
criminal conduct for the police to start attacking and arresting
protesters on Saturday. Even before the curfew. That Saturday, thousands
(02:16):
gathered outside the Justice Center, which had to become tradition
in Portland. People march around downtown and occupied the street
in front of the j C, the casual name given
to the Justice Center. Police came out a few times
throughout the day to try and get people off the street,
with mixed results. This culminated with the police and riot
gear tear gassing the streets and city parks around the
(02:37):
j C while bashing people in the head with truncheons,
all in broad daylight, hours before the curfew was said
to begin. Look at this top hitting with this. Look
at the look at this. Throughout downtown, some white vans
(03:00):
targeted the largest crowd of protesters they could find, launching
tear gas and stunt grenades into the crowd of people.
Regular city traffic was engulfed in clouds of gas on
streets which had not even been closed. Houses Portland are
sleeping intents were woken by flashbangs, gas and impact grounds.
As a clock struck eight pm. After telling and gassing
(03:21):
protesters for the better part of two hours, cops kettle
protesters onto a bridge, surrounding and arresting the entire crowd
for being out past curfew. A total of forty eight
arrests were made that night. Portland Mayor Tet Wheeler, upon
his return from visiting his sick mother extended the curfew
for yet another day. On Sunday, May one, the largest
crowd yet, ten thousand strong, marched across the burn Side
(03:43):
Bridge into downtown. As the marchers approached the end of
the bridge, cops were waiting on the other end, blocking
their path. Once the sheer size of the crowd became apparent,
the police turned tail and ran high, telling it back
to the Justice Center. The crowd followed them there and
attends hours long standoff allowed. Eventually, the crowd thinned out
enough that police were able to tear gas and flash
(04:04):
band grenade protesters into dispersing. That night was one of
the most terrifying evenings of the entire uprising, with the
officers hanging off of riot evans and grenading passers by
seemingly at random. Mayor Wheeler extended the curfew for yet
another day. At a press conference announcing his ascension, Wheeler
doubled down on his law and order stance, this time
(04:26):
with the help of Governor Kate Brown. I want to
be very clear that there are open lines of communications
between myself and the Governor personally, as well as between
our offices. There is coordination with the Superintendent of State
Police as well as the leadership of the National Guard UM.
(04:47):
I spoke to the Governor three or four times yesterday.
I did make the request on all three of those
occasions for support from the National Guard. The Governor had
alternative strategies that she suggested, including deploying more state police resources.
(05:09):
We subsequently asked for additional tools that could be used
in the field. That was agreed to by the Governor
and supported UM Based on last night, however, I agree
with what the U. S. Attorney has said, and I
agree with what my colleagues in the Portland Police Borough
have just confirmed with me, which is we do need
(05:32):
more resources. Come Monday, June one, there was a shift
in Portland protests. Instead of meeting at the Justice Center,
another crowd of thousands gather on the east side of
Portland's across from the river downtown at an aptly named
concert venue Revolution Hall. After some speeches, the crowd began
to march west toward downtown. The crowd near Defense with
(05:54):
a line of riot cotts behind the chain link. A
young black woman at the head of the march asked
an officer of the march to the j C. The
police said no, Eventually, the huge march headed back to
Revolution Hall and no tear gas was used. Now you
have to understand at this point a lot of the
crowd had just been the last three days getting horribly
(06:15):
tear gas, beat up and chased by the police. The
thought of doing a protest and march without being assaulted
by the cops felt like a nice change compared to
the last three nights. But that all changed the next day,
the day that would become infamously known as tear gas Tuesday.
Tear gas Tuesday sucked. Well. I had a full asthma attack. Um.
(06:38):
I had never been subjected to tear gas before, and
so I saw a cloud of tear gas, and I
saw a man fall down in the cloud of tear gas,
and he was struggling to get up, and so I
ran in and I kind of picked him up by
his shirt and then grabbed my eyes on and pulled
him out of there. And then I immediately had an
(06:58):
asthma attack. Um, and my buddy picked me up and yeah,
that's both out of there. That's Chris, a volunteer protests
medic and tear Gas Tuesday was actually his second night
out the brutality. He witnesses what got him to decide
to dedicate his whole summer to helping people in the streets.
I saw a girl get hit in the face with
(07:19):
trapnel and that was not okay. And then everybody's getting
tear gas and it was a mess. And it was
the infamous tear Gast Tuesday. And after that, I just
kind of decided that I needed to start coming out
with medical supplies because how that was handled, what people
were doing to provide medicine in that moment wasn't up
(07:42):
to a standard that I knew that I could provide.
But let's take a step back. Tear Gast Tuesday was
a noteworthy shift for Portland protests for a multitude of reasons.
It was the first day since Riot Night with no curfew,
with city officials even publicly admitting to the curfew being
in effective now, and it was the first day that
the protests noticeably began to splinter. Just like Monday the
(08:04):
day before, thousands sparks from Revolution Hall towards the fence,
which at this point surrounded several city blocks, including the
Justice Center, the Federal Courthouse, and Chapman in Loudesdale, the
two city parts which faced those buildings, only this time
just have the crowd turned back to Rev Hall, but
the other half set on chanting at the police behind
(08:25):
the chain link fence. The Portland Police issue repeated warnings
over louds because that protesters were not to touch defense
under threat of right munitions as might be predicted. The
santity of PPB sacred fence became an immediate source of ridicule.
Even as police followed through on their threats and as
members of the crowd dared to touch the fence, the
(08:46):
PPB once again deployed an outrageous amounted tear gas. And
it wasn't even the mounted teer gas that was fired
off that night, but how they fired it. Several times
Police rushed in multiple directions, all while firing off more
tear gas, eating a massive cage of poison. Police are
boxing and crowded on several sides and deploying munitions into
the crowd, flashbags and gas to see the antashes flag here.
(09:13):
Two other things stick out from tear gas susan, the
first of which was just how many motorists driving through
downtown were tear gas by Portland police them everywhere from
the rooftops hall side pump gas in County gas into
the crowd, shooting gas. Look, there's fucking tear gas. They're
(09:37):
sucking tear gas in the middle of traffic. That was
just fired from someone up on a rooftop into the
middle of traffic. Multiple times, people who are blinded by
gas while driving panic and lost control of their vehicles,
nearly hit people as they drove into crowds. Protesters were
water bottles and medical supplies render aid to drivers who
(09:58):
had crashed into the curves. Here, we have how many
cards there are here? All of these people are about
to get tear gas. Oh boy, they're just started arcing
them down at us from God and us where baby
on the roofs. They're just coming down from the sky.
People was trying to traffic coming them, trying to pick
them away, trying to stop them from gassing traffic. The
(10:20):
other thing that sticks out is the crowd's resilience was growing.
Protesters started adopting Tati scene in the Hong Kong Uprising,
like placing traffic cones over tear gas canisters and pouring
water through the top of the cone to get the
Bernie caranister out. We see people actually very effectively to
polling on tactics here to stop these tear gas grenades
(10:40):
from dropping brock Co tusters and from gassing vehicles. A
chance that became popular in the Whist to Come was
walked don't run, reminding people in times of panic often
the safest way out. It's just by walking calmly. More
experienced organizers are walking calmly through the crowd, putting hands
on people and saying do not run. Do not run,
(11:03):
because the thing that hurts people in situations like this
is panic. It's scary, but it probably won't seriously harm
you if you don't panic, and the police aren't going
to take any steps to try to avoid a stampede,
so the only way to avoid a stampede is again
for the crowd to take care of itself. We have
(11:23):
seen people get so much better at reforming the crowd
after being gassed. That started to really improve on Sunday night.
And look, most of the people are still here, still organized,
still marching, still many thousands of people. This is the
first time we've seen the best job of the crowd
staying together and really showing commitment and endurance uh in
(11:48):
the face of police brutality. So this has been a
very important and a very impressive night from the activists
and the citizens of Portland, Oregon. Chris will acquire a
gas asked the very next day sums of his feelings
about tear gas Tuesday like this. It was such an
odd response to see the police respond to a protest
(12:09):
about um police violence and brutality with police violence and brutality.
(12:30):
After tear gas Tuesday, things in Portland started to fall
into a pattern. During the day, there'll be massive peaceful
marches starting from Revolution Hall led by a new group
called Royal City Justice. At night, about a thousand protesters
would gather at the Sacred Fence, which now only surrounded
the Justice Center and the adjacent federal buildings, to inevitably
get tear gas and attacked by police for quote tapering
(12:53):
with the fence. Photo journalists and photographer Mariah says some
of her favorite moments of the protests were at the
massive march is organized by Royal City Justice in early June.
I would say, like in the early days, UM really
is some stuff that really is memorable to me, especially
with a lot of my UM favorite photos from this
(13:13):
whole um UM movement has come from the earlier days,
Like there was a moment I want to say it
was that Burnside Bridge when everyone was like laying down
for eight minutes and forty six seconds, and Um, I
got some good pictures of that, and it was just
really great to capture. UM. I think that the moment
when Damian Lillard came out, you know, everyone like you know,
(13:35):
had like this slub moment in this and I got it.
And at the moment actually when he came out, I
didn't even know he was out there, and so I
checked my photos later and I was like, oh, snap,
UM got him and stuff. Activists and live streamer Max
Smith attended both the larger daytime protests on the East
Side and the night protests at the j C. Here
he explains how he became a popular speaker at the
(13:56):
Portland protests and the interesting effect of having both the
daytime march and a nighttime action on the public. I
want to say it was the second or the third
that I actually got out in the streets um doing
the work with the security stuff and helping out with
the larger marches on the East Side, the Revolution Hall
things and all that. So I was kind of doing
(14:17):
playing a couple of rolls over there with helping with
the Guardian folks and doing some you know, political education
at the same time, and it's it kind of just
came natural. I just started talking to people and people
started listening to what I'm saying, and um, on the
night of the five, I got arrested downtown at the
j C um or near the around the area of
(14:41):
the j C. At least I got arrested down there.
And so that weekend I ended up giving a speech
at Irving Park and that's kind of where things started
ended up being like streamed on the news locally. So
that's where things kind of started changing for me at
that point. And can you talk to me about the
(15:04):
night you were arrested? Yeah, just kind of as much
detail as you're because you're interested in going in. Yeah,
that's fun my, you know, it was just a basic arrest. Um.
I was actually out there with a couple of people.
We had been going down a couple of nights to
see what was going on at the Justice Center because
you know, I have been you know, if you're just
watching the news, all you see is, you know, it
(15:24):
looks like one big march, right, Like it's one huge march.
It starts in the daytime and all of a sudden
it descends into madness at night. But quickly I realized
that there's there's multiple things that are going on. If
you leave your house, you know, you get the TV,
it's a lot that's going on in the streets. So
I started, you know, going out to see different things.
And we were down at the j C and things
got really gassy. It was one of the nights. So
(15:47):
again it was the first like you know, a few
days of gassing, and I had been down there before,
(16:10):
and this time I brought a couple different people that
were like, you know, I'm trying to see it, but
I'm scared. I was like, just come with me. I'll
show you what's going on. It's not that big of
a deal. But we ended up um catching up with
some other people down there and kind of had like
a little group and we were and there were a
lot of like teenagers down there, and so we were
actually making sure a lot of people got out because
(16:30):
there were cops everywhere, like circling and pulling people over
and stopping people and arresting him. So we were like
kind of helping folks navigate their way out and then um,
as it got late, there were a bunch of people
that were suffering from tear gas. And so myself in
a medic and I have like a first day to
training basic stuff, and so that those first nights I
was out there with like you know, milk or the
(16:52):
baking soda and water solutions and whatever else, just helping
folks out. And so we were following the groans of people,
you know, coughing and and being into tear gas, and
the cops just rolled up with like four cars and
eight officers hopped out and I got snatched up and
it's got snatched up by that. I got grabbed by
the hair, got young to the ground, bruised my elbow.
(17:14):
You know, I had to creeck on my neck for
a few days. But they arrested me. They drove me
around a squad car for like fifteen twenty minutes. They
picked up some other guy, Um, you know, they accused
him of drawing on a drawing on a window with
a sharpie or something, and he's like what and they
were like, you know, they were trying to charge him
(17:35):
with a felony. All of our charges got dropped. No
one got charged with anything. I got charged with obstructing
the police. He got charged with something else. As Mac
was inside the police car, he was also able to
get a sneak peek of how the police were targeting
people for a rest behind the scenes. I thought it
was crazy because they had this like thing in their car,
like this like a heads up display like a HUT
(17:56):
and it it it had like it had an airy
o view of this of the downtown grid and it
had like it was able to track people. And I
thought that was it was like a call of duty
to display like when you're like using like you know,
the helicopter or whatever. It was like that, and like
you could see like the people and they were like
I represented like as lights a kind of there was
(18:18):
like a light on them. It was like a it
was like a black and white display and you could
see the things that are moving. But then like with people,
it basically lit them up with like lights and circles.
It would a circle us um if we were in groups,
and when the group's got small enough and they would
like a turn green and the cops were just to
go and rest people. The group of protesters gathered at
(18:40):
the fence were quick to make a distinction between quote
peaceful protests and non violent protests. While the massive Rose
City justice marches remained peaceful, the crowds have to j
C would engage in nonviolent actions such as shaking, tearing down,
and cutting apart the chain link fence. Most of what
(19:05):
people did at the j C was just standing in
the street in parks while channey demands and slogans. But
it didn't require people to tamper with the fence or
throw a half drunk water bottles for the police to
respond with force. As this protester can attest, I was
downtown and it was back at the original fence, and
you know, there was probably I probably estimate like five
(19:26):
people there and everyone was really spread out, and um,
there was no police on the ground. It was raining
that night, and they had their floodlights like pointed at us. Um.
And one shot got fired from one of the like
the little balcony areas, the one that's farther to the right,
(19:47):
and it hit me in the leg. It was just
one shot and it hit me at the like the
very top of my left thigh. And I was just
standing there with a group of ends like I had.
There was a beach ball in the crowd that night
and it said don't gas me bro, And I picked
it up and I started writing on it, and one
shot got fired and it hit me in the leg.
(20:09):
And that was what I would consider to be at
least like protests related my first encounter with the Portland
Police Bureau. No one was doing anything, No one was,
you know, pushing on the fence or knocking on it,
and they just fired a shot into the crowd and
it hit me. Next you're going to hear from Garrison Davis.
(20:39):
He was just seventeen in Portland's vehle and protests started,
and for weeks he was out virtually every night, filming
some of the most intense police violence and posting some
of the most viral videos of the entire uprising. Here's Garrison.
Every night. The fence at the Justice Center seemed to
grow larger. The city doubled up some sections of the
chain link and stacked pieces offense on top of one another. Eventually,
(21:02):
concrete barriers were added to make it harder to knock
over the fence. The divides between protesters began to widen
as well. Some of the more radical leftist BLM activists
in Portland criticized Rosity Justice and their insistence on quote
peaceful protest over direct action that might damage police property.
Gregory McKelvey, vice chair of organ DEM's Black Caucus and
(21:24):
former organizer, pushed back on some of that criticism. Gregory
was also organizing on a new front, now as Protest
Gain Steam. He was in the home stretch of leading
a grassroots style campaign for political newcomer Sarah I on
our Own to take down incumbent Mayor Ted Wheeler. Many
Portlanders felt Wheeler had failed on his promise to deliver
fundamental change on issues of housing and please reform. Instead,
(21:47):
Wheeler became a symbol of big money in politics more
of the same. Gregory's candidate I on our Own ran
to the left of Wheeler, dubbing herself and quote everyday
anti fascist. So you know, uh, we had a situation
where tens of thousands of people were marching every day.
And if you're at those events, they're just beautiful, and yeah,
they're way more liberal, they're way more moderate. Um, but
(22:10):
those people are being marched along pun intended towards a
more radical place. And you know, Malcolm X said more
eloquently than me that basically, UM, you know everything, you know,
there was a point where you didn't UM. And so
these people are on their journey just as everybody else.
And just because they're not anarchists yet does not make
(22:30):
them agents of the state. UM. And I really think
that those protests are what effectively got us the UM
the twenty million defunded from the police. I mean, we
had a moment where they were mass protests and Damian
Lillard was at the front of a protest UM that
was in capturing the entire city. Now, if you're wondering,
(22:51):
yes he's talking about that, Davian Lillard, five time NBA
l Star and Portland's Trailblazers superstar point guard day mean Lillard, Yeah,
he was out there too. Yeah. They weren't burning stuff down, um.
And also some of their rhetoric was not, you know,
as far left as maybe I would like or and
and certainly that some people at the Justice Center would like.
(23:13):
But I actually do think those protests were more effective
and they certainly have far more support from the broad public.
And we were getting people at these protests who had
never protest before. Like I don't think the Justice Center
protests should have stopped. And I don't think that they're
ineffective per se um, but I think there's certainly much
more effective if in tandem. There's also the other protests
going on. So if I'm at home watching UM like
(23:37):
Chanel two, six, eight or twelve, which I had to
watch a lot for my job, UM, they're not making
a difference between which protesters are which protesters. They're just
saying protesters merged and Damian Lillard joined them. Later in
the night, protesters were gased and beaten. Right that that
UM way of explaining things is really helpful for all
(24:01):
the protesters because um, they see that protests with Damian
Lillard and they're like, oh, I support this, And then
they see what they think is the same people getting
gas that night, and they're like no, no, no, no no,
And that helps us move the conversation towards the funding
once those massive protests go away and we only have
protests that Damian Lillard is never going to be seen
at now. Uh now they have no support from the
(24:22):
broad public. Early June is also when most of Portland's
police reforms were achieved under large pressure both locally and
from the nationwide BLA movement. The Portland's Public schools superintendent
decided to end the school resource officer program, opting instead
for an increased spending on social workers, counselors and culturally
specific mentors for students, also historically racist. Portland's police unit
(24:47):
was also disbanded. Here's more on that from Gregory. We
got rid of some of the specialty units, including the
Gang Enforcement Unit are formerly known as the Gang Enforcement Unit,
which kept a list of mostly black individual tolls that
they thought were gang members. Um and it really was
a circle of our injustice car strol system um and
(25:09):
was really abhorrent and racist. And they switched their name
to the Gun Violence Production Team and a branding effort,
but still had the same mandate. We got rid of
that specialty unit. We defunded twenty something million dollars from
the police, which, um sounds like a lot, but we
were defunding from a lot of different bureaus because of
the pandemic in the budget shortfall in general. Alongside those
(25:31):
small reforms in early June, Portland also saw some negative
change on the road to police accountability. The officers responding
to protests were told they were allowed to cover both
their nametag and badge number amid fears officers would be
quote docked. Lawyer Alan Kessler explains this in greater detail. So, um,
(25:53):
there's a directive that says that the police shall display
their name on their uniform unless they get special dispensation
from their their command or to not do it. Um.
And the police are supposed to give you a business
card if you as they're supposed to identify themselves, are
supposed to give a business card which has their name
(26:13):
and badge number on it. Right there. It's not supposed
to be a secret police force. And the directives are
there are several directives that are kind of about that
uh interaction with the public. It turns out that very
early in the in the protests, there was a an
email that was sent out that told police that it's
(26:36):
okay for them to cover their badge and then replace
it with their It's called their personnel number or perner
um spelled either PRNR or p E r N r H.
And it's a it's a weird choice, like the only
the only thing it was used for before that was payroll.
(26:56):
It's in their accounting system. Oh and so historically it's
been used in the on some internal investigations of police
officers alike in internal review reports. Um. But the reason
they picked it, like, uh, I kind of guess this
at the time, but it was suit too silly to
be true. Was there is a There aren't a ton
(27:21):
of things that are exempt from the public records lot Oregon,
but one thing that is exempt is UH numbers on
an I D badge. Um. So somebody thought this through.
Somebody who is really familiar with the public records thought
this through and said, Okay, if we use the number
from the I D badge as the cops badge number,
(27:42):
then if anybody asked for the list, we'll say, no,
those are secret numbers. That are you know, we have
to keep them secret for the for the cops protection,
which is nuts because they're wearing it out in public
on their chest. But but there's like no way to
trace it back in a digital for in, no way
for us to for sure. The early marches had been
(28:06):
absolutely enormous, but almost everyone there fell into the simple
category of protester. There were some very overworked medics, but
Portland's lacked the sheer variety of specialties among the activists
that allowed Hong Kong's protest movement to persist for so long.
That changed over the first few weeks of the uprising,
(28:26):
as people who never thought of themselves as particularly radical
fell into new rules. There were no longer just street medics,
but shield bearing front liners, people armed with traffic cones
and water to douse tear gas. Other activists provided food
and equipment, and a handful of Portlanders began learning the
trade of the conflict journalist, while Portland's professional press got
(28:49):
used to packing body armor alongside their camera notebook. As
an any mass movement, there was bound to be disagreements
and in fighting. People had different opinions on everything from
looting to dumpster fires, to how much fence shaking was
acceptable and the usefulness of large marches that stayed completely peaceful.
Despite those differences, people did keep coming out day after day,
(29:10):
night after night, for the entire first half of June.
Some of those people are still coming out even now. Yeah.
I was six kind of personally expecting just for people
just to be maybe be protesting a week to you know,
not not much and then you know, quote unquote back
to normal life. But you know, yeah, and then it's
been now five months, um at it so yeah, and
(29:34):
I kept going because my I just felt really strongly
to keep going, and especially with um what I was doing,
um as for photographing at all, I just had this
passion that I was like, Okay, I gotta keep going.
So yeah, I've I haven't stopped. As June wore on,
the number of people out at nightly demonstrations began to drop.
Crowds of thousands became crowds of hundreds. A certain mania
(29:56):
took over the increasingly hardened core of the Portland BLM movement,
who seems to feel the need to confront police every
single night without pause. It exhausted many protesters and journalists.
Cosca describes the feeling, well, um, yeah, I mean it
was it was every night, and it was it was NonStop.
And I remember once, um when they when they when
(30:18):
they had the double fences up in front of the
Justice Center. I remember when some people walking away from
it and they were telling me that the protest was canceled,
and I said, there's no such things. Is canceling this?
I was like this to me, I was I even
said it on one of my videos and sound kind
of cheesy, but I was like, this feels like the
energy for this rebellion is coming from some some unknown place.
(30:43):
Like like I said, it's felt almost supernatural because it
was pushing people on their human limits. Like for me,
I'm not the kind of person that will, you know,
interrupt my sleep schedule for almost anything. But I didn't
really sleep or eat or drink as you're supposed to
do for almost two months because us so wrapped up
(31:05):
in yeah, what was happening. And then I didn't know
that for a while. I didn't know that other cities
were still protesting for a long time because I you know,
I didn't even have time to check the news because
it would take me. You know, since I'm older, it
takes me longer to recover from that of the whole
you know what, I would be recovering the whole time,
(31:26):
not protesting while I was not protesting, to be recovering
from protesting. That pretty much all I did for almost
two months. Looking back on the early days of the uprising,
you can see all the little things that happened in
order to transform this into more than just a regular
protest every day. The brutality from the previous night rekindled
people's desire for change. Repeated tear gassings forced the crowd
(31:48):
to get good at reforming after being dispersed. As the
days turned into weeks, protesters started mirroring Hong Kong tactics.
More and more established activist groups provided support for new
activists with new ideas. On June seventeenth, inspired by Seattle's
Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, Portland protesters announced plans for an
autonomous zone of their own. This a Z was limited
(32:11):
to a single city block in front of Mayor Ted
Wheeler's luxury condo, where protesters set up tents, eight pizza,
and played dance music late into the night. The Portland
police ousted the occupation early the following morning, but protesters
were clearly learning valuable lessons. Drinks, pizza, medical support, and
a speaker system arrived within the first hour of the occupation.
Barricades went up soon after, followed by the arrival of
(32:33):
the Autonomous zones very own porta potty. By the time
the police swept through in the early morning, a surprising
amount of infrastructure had been set down in a very
short amount of time. That action ultimately failed, but as
protests continued through the city, infrastructure would spring up again
and again. Throughout the first half of June, a framework
was put in place that would transform Portland's Black Lives
(32:55):
Matter protests into a movement that could hold on and
dig in for more than half a year. Uh Where
the grandpops who couldn't fathom the obamacist? I don't hate
America just to man, she keeps the promises twenty teens
looking like the sixties. It's crazy, a nationwide deja wo
what my people post to do? Go to schools named
(33:16):
after the clan founder. We're around town, isa, 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
heroes unsung in some monsters get monuments built for them.
But it ain't be all a little bit of monster.
We crook it. Man, Your heroes are worthless and man
can show private only God gives purpose. You crook it.
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