Speaker 1: Police grow do not interfere with the officer instructions, he
Speaker 1: will be sus A four scud embatations and riottral agents
Speaker 1: stay back. By the time protests kicked off in Portland,
Speaker 1: protesters in Minneapolis had burned down the Third Precinct and
Speaker 1: several other buildings. But as it turns out, Portland was
Speaker 1: actually the first city in the country to declare a
Speaker 1: riot over the protests after George Floyd's death. This has
Speaker 1: more to do with the way that Portland police declare
Speaker 1: riots than the objective standard of unrest, and now many
Speaker 1: months later, Portland police still declare riots on a fairly
Speaker 1: regular basis. It seems that Portland is set on having
Speaker 1: the first and last riot of the protests. So what
Speaker 1: happened that turned relatively normal BLM actions in Portland, which
Speaker 1: were happening in every major American city into a movement
Speaker 1: that still draws out crowds today. I'm Robert Evans and
Speaker 1: this is Uprising, a guide from Portland. My partners in
Speaker 1: this series are a team of local Portland journalists Garrison Davis,
Speaker 1: Donovan Smith, b Lake, and Elaine Kitchen. We wrote this
Speaker 1: series together and they'll be handling most of the narration.
Speaker 1: For this episode, you'll be hearing more from me too,
Speaker 1: as we've embedded audio from several of the live streams
Speaker 1: I recorded during cop riots. Right now, I'm going to
Speaker 1: hand the mic off to Donovan Smith. He's reported on
Speaker 1: politics and social justice for a wide variety of local publications,
Speaker 1: and he helped produce a documentary on gentrification. Here's Donovan.
Speaker 1: After the first night of quote unquote rioting in Portland's,
Speaker 1: a state of emergency was declared and a curfew was
Speaker 1: imposed from eight pm to six am, with the express
Speaker 1: interests of cracking down all mass gatherings of protesters. When
Speaker 1: asked if the curfew will be enforced if someone was,
Speaker 1: for example, to go grocery shopping, the Mayor's office replied, quote,
Speaker 1: the city is not interested in citing people who are
Speaker 1: lying about their business, causing no harm and uninvolved in
Speaker 1: criminal conduct. Quote. But it didn't require property destruction or
Speaker 1: criminal conduct for the police to start attacking and arresting
Speaker 1: protesters on Saturday. Even before the curfew. That Saturday, thousands
Speaker 1: gathered outside the Justice Center, which had to become tradition
Speaker 1: in Portland. People march around downtown and occupied the street
Speaker 1: in front of the j C, the casual name given
Speaker 1: to the Justice Center. Police came out a few times
Speaker 1: throughout the day to try and get people off the street,
Speaker 1: with mixed results. This culminated with the police and riot
Speaker 1: gear tear gassing the streets and city parks around the
Speaker 1: j C while bashing people in the head with truncheons,
Speaker 1: all in broad daylight, hours before the curfew was said
Speaker 1: to begin. Look at this top hitting with this. Look
Speaker 1: at the look at this. Throughout downtown, some white vans
Speaker 1: targeted the largest crowd of protesters they could find, launching
Speaker 1: tear gas and stunt grenades into the crowd of people.
Speaker 1: Regular city traffic was engulfed in clouds of gas on
Speaker 1: streets which had not even been closed. Houses Portland are
Speaker 1: sleeping intents were woken by flashbangs, gas and impact grounds.
Speaker 1: As a clock struck eight pm. After telling and gassing
Speaker 1: protesters for the better part of two hours, cops kettle
Speaker 1: protesters onto a bridge, surrounding and arresting the entire crowd
Speaker 1: for being out past curfew. A total of forty eight
Speaker 1: arrests were made that night. Portland Mayor Tet Wheeler, upon
Speaker 1: his return from visiting his sick mother extended the curfew
Speaker 1: for yet another day. On Sunday, May one, the largest
Speaker 1: crowd yet, ten thousand strong, marched across the burn Side
Speaker 1: Bridge into downtown. As the marchers approached the end of
Speaker 1: the bridge, cops were waiting on the other end, blocking
Speaker 1: their path. Once the sheer size of the crowd became apparent,
Speaker 1: the police turned tail and ran high, telling it back
Speaker 1: to the Justice Center. The crowd followed them there and
Speaker 1: attends hours long standoff allowed. Eventually, the crowd thinned out
Speaker 1: enough that police were able to tear gas and flash
Speaker 1: band grenade protesters into dispersing. That night was one of
Speaker 1: the most terrifying evenings of the entire uprising, with the
Speaker 1: officers hanging off of riot evans and grenading passers by
Speaker 1: seemingly at random. Mayor Wheeler extended the curfew for yet
Speaker 1: another day. At a press conference announcing his ascension, Wheeler
Speaker 1: doubled down on his law and order stance, this time
Speaker 1: with the help of Governor Kate Brown. I want to
Speaker 1: be very clear that there are open lines of communications
Speaker 1: between myself and the Governor personally, as well as between
Speaker 1: our offices. There is coordination with the Superintendent of State
Speaker 1: Police as well as the leadership of the National Guard UM.
Speaker 1: I spoke to the Governor three or four times yesterday.
Speaker 1: I did make the request on all three of those
Speaker 1: occasions for support from the National Guard. The Governor had
Speaker 1: alternative strategies that she suggested, including deploying more state police resources.
Speaker 1: We subsequently asked for additional tools that could be used
Speaker 1: in the field. That was agreed to by the Governor
Speaker 1: and supported UM Based on last night, however, I agree
Speaker 1: with what the U. S. Attorney has said, and I
Speaker 1: agree with what my colleagues in the Portland Police Borough
Speaker 1: have just confirmed with me, which is we do need
Speaker 1: more resources. Come Monday, June one, there was a shift
Speaker 1: in Portland protests. Instead of meeting at the Justice Center,
Speaker 1: another crowd of thousands gather on the east side of
Speaker 1: Portland's across from the river downtown at an aptly named
Speaker 1: concert venue Revolution Hall. After some speeches, the crowd began
Speaker 1: to march west toward downtown. The crowd near Defense with
Speaker 1: a line of riot cotts behind the chain link. A
Speaker 1: young black woman at the head of the march asked
Speaker 1: an officer of the march to the j C. The
Speaker 1: police said no, Eventually, the huge march headed back to
Speaker 1: Revolution Hall and no tear gas was used. Now you
Speaker 1: have to understand at this point a lot of the
Speaker 1: crowd had just been the last three days getting horribly
Speaker 1: tear gas, beat up and chased by the police. The
Speaker 1: thought of doing a protest and march without being assaulted
Speaker 1: by the cops felt like a nice change compared to
Speaker 1: the last three nights. But that all changed the next day,
Speaker 1: the day that would become infamously known as tear gas Tuesday.
Speaker 1: Tear gas Tuesday sucked. Well. I had a full asthma attack. Um.
Speaker 1: I had never been subjected to tear gas before, and
Speaker 1: so I saw a cloud of tear gas, and I
Speaker 1: saw a man fall down in the cloud of tear gas,
Speaker 1: and he was struggling to get up, and so I
Speaker 1: ran in and I kind of picked him up by
Speaker 1: his shirt and then grabbed my eyes on and pulled
Speaker 1: him out of there. And then I immediately had an
Speaker 1: asthma attack. Um, and my buddy picked me up and yeah,
Speaker 1: that's both out of there. That's Chris, a volunteer protests
Speaker 1: medic and tear Gas Tuesday was actually his second night
Speaker 1: out the brutality. He witnesses what got him to decide
Speaker 1: to dedicate his whole summer to helping people in the streets.
Speaker 1: I saw a girl get hit in the face with
Speaker 1: trapnel and that was not okay. And then everybody's getting
Speaker 1: tear gas and it was a mess. And it was
Speaker 1: the infamous tear Gast Tuesday. And after that, I just
Speaker 1: kind of decided that I needed to start coming out
Speaker 1: with medical supplies because how that was handled, what people
Speaker 1: were doing to provide medicine in that moment wasn't up
Speaker 1: to a standard that I knew that I could provide.
Speaker 1: But let's take a step back. Tear Gast Tuesday was
Speaker 1: a noteworthy shift for Portland protests for a multitude of reasons.
Speaker 1: It was the first day since Riot Night with no curfew,
Speaker 1: with city officials even publicly admitting to the curfew being
Speaker 1: in effective now, and it was the first day that
Speaker 1: the protests noticeably began to splinter. Just like Monday the
Speaker 1: day before, thousands sparks from Revolution Hall towards the fence,
Speaker 1: which at this point surrounded several city blocks, including the
Speaker 1: Justice Center, the Federal Courthouse, and Chapman in Loudesdale, the
Speaker 1: two city parts which faced those buildings, only this time
Speaker 1: just have the crowd turned back to Rev Hall, but
Speaker 1: the other half set on chanting at the police behind
Speaker 1: the chain link fence. The Portland Police issue repeated warnings
Speaker 1: over louds because that protesters were not to touch defense
Speaker 1: under threat of right munitions as might be predicted. The
Speaker 1: santity of PPB sacred fence became an immediate source of ridicule.
Speaker 1: Even as police followed through on their threats and as
Speaker 1: members of the crowd dared to touch the fence, the
Speaker 1: PPB once again deployed an outrageous amounted tear gas. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't even the mounted teer gas that was fired
Speaker 1: off that night, but how they fired it. Several times
Speaker 1: Police rushed in multiple directions, all while firing off more
Speaker 1: tear gas, eating a massive cage of poison. Police are
Speaker 1: boxing and crowded on several sides and deploying munitions into
Speaker 1: the crowd, flashbags and gas to see the antashes flag here.
Speaker 1: Two other things stick out from tear gas susan, the
Speaker 1: first of which was just how many motorists driving through
Speaker 1: downtown were tear gas by Portland police them everywhere from
Speaker 1: the rooftops hall side pump gas in County gas into
Speaker 1: the crowd, shooting gas. Look, there's fucking tear gas. They're
Speaker 1: sucking tear gas in the middle of traffic. That was
Speaker 1: just fired from someone up on a rooftop into the
Speaker 1: middle of traffic. Multiple times, people who are blinded by
Speaker 1: gas while driving panic and lost control of their vehicles,
Speaker 1: nearly hit people as they drove into crowds. Protesters were
Speaker 1: water bottles and medical supplies render aid to drivers who
Speaker 1: had crashed into the curves. Here, we have how many
Speaker 1: cards there are here? All of these people are about
Speaker 1: to get tear gas. Oh boy, they're just started arcing
Speaker 1: them down at us from God and us where baby
Speaker 1: on the roofs. They're just coming down from the sky.
Speaker 1: People was trying to traffic coming them, trying to pick
Speaker 1: them away, trying to stop them from gassing traffic. The
Speaker 1: other thing that sticks out is the crowd's resilience was growing.
Speaker 1: Protesters started adopting Tati scene in the Hong Kong Uprising,
Speaker 1: like placing traffic cones over tear gas canisters and pouring
Speaker 1: water through the top of the cone to get the
Speaker 1: Bernie caranister out. We see people actually very effectively to
Speaker 1: polling on tactics here to stop these tear gas grenades
Speaker 1: from dropping brock Co tusters and from gassing vehicles. A
Speaker 1: chance that became popular in the Whist to Come was
Speaker 1: walked don't run, reminding people in times of panic often
Speaker 1: the safest way out. It's just by walking calmly. More
Speaker 1: experienced organizers are walking calmly through the crowd, putting hands
Speaker 1: on people and saying do not run. Do not run,
Speaker 1: because the thing that hurts people in situations like this
Speaker 1: is panic. It's scary, but it probably won't seriously harm
Speaker 1: you if you don't panic, and the police aren't going
Speaker 1: to take any steps to try to avoid a stampede,
Speaker 1: so the only way to avoid a stampede is again
Speaker 1: for the crowd to take care of itself. We have
Speaker 1: seen people get so much better at reforming the crowd
Speaker 1: after being gassed. That started to really improve on Sunday night.
Speaker 1: And look, most of the people are still here, still organized,
Speaker 1: still marching, still many thousands of people. This is the
Speaker 1: first time we've seen the best job of the crowd
Speaker 1: staying together and really showing commitment and endurance uh in
Speaker 1: the face of police brutality. So this has been a
Speaker 1: very important and a very impressive night from the activists
Speaker 1: and the citizens of Portland, Oregon. Chris will acquire a
Speaker 1: gas asked the very next day sums of his feelings
Speaker 1: about tear gas Tuesday like this. It was such an
Speaker 1: odd response to see the police respond to a protest
Speaker 1: about um police violence and brutality with police violence and brutality.
Speaker 1: After tear gas Tuesday, things in Portland started to fall
Speaker 1: into a pattern. During the day, there'll be massive peaceful
Speaker 1: marches starting from Revolution Hall led by a new group
Speaker 1: called Royal City Justice. At night, about a thousand protesters
Speaker 1: would gather at the Sacred Fence, which now only surrounded
Speaker 1: the Justice Center and the adjacent federal buildings, to inevitably
Speaker 1: get tear gas and attacked by police for quote tapering
Speaker 1: with the fence. Photo journalists and photographer Mariah says some
Speaker 1: of her favorite moments of the protests were at the
Speaker 1: massive march is organized by Royal City Justice in early June.
Speaker 1: I would say, like in the early days, UM really
Speaker 1: is some stuff that really is memorable to me, especially
Speaker 1: with a lot of my UM favorite photos from this
Speaker 1: whole um UM movement has come from the earlier days,
Speaker 1: Like there was a moment I want to say it
Speaker 1: was that Burnside Bridge when everyone was like laying down
Speaker 1: for eight minutes and forty six seconds, and Um, I
Speaker 1: got some good pictures of that, and it was just
Speaker 1: really great to capture. UM. I think that the moment
Speaker 1: when Damian Lillard came out, you know, everyone like you know,
Speaker 1: had like this slub moment in this and I got it.
Speaker 1: And at the moment actually when he came out, I
Speaker 1: didn't even know he was out there, and so I
Speaker 1: checked my photos later and I was like, oh, snap,
Speaker 1: UM got him and stuff. Activists and live streamer Max
Speaker 1: Smith attended both the larger daytime protests on the East
Speaker 1: Side and the night protests at the j C. Here
Speaker 1: he explains how he became a popular speaker at the
Speaker 1: Portland protests and the interesting effect of having both the
Speaker 1: daytime march and a nighttime action on the public. I
Speaker 1: want to say it was the second or the third
Speaker 1: that I actually got out in the streets um doing
Speaker 1: the work with the security stuff and helping out with
Speaker 1: the larger marches on the East Side, the Revolution Hall
Speaker 1: things and all that. So I was kind of doing
Speaker 1: playing a couple of rolls over there with helping with
Speaker 1: the Guardian folks and doing some you know, political education
Speaker 1: at the same time, and it's it kind of just
Speaker 1: came natural. I just started talking to people and people
Speaker 1: started listening to what I'm saying, and um, on the
Speaker 1: night of the five, I got arrested downtown at the
Speaker 1: j C um or near the around the area of
Speaker 1: the j C. At least I got arrested down there.
Speaker 1: And so that weekend I ended up giving a speech
Speaker 1: at Irving Park and that's kind of where things started
Speaker 1: ended up being like streamed on the news locally. So
Speaker 1: that's where things kind of started changing for me at
Speaker 1: that point. And can you talk to me about the
Speaker 1: night you were arrested? Yeah, just kind of as much
Speaker 1: detail as you're because you're interested in going in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's fun my, you know, it was just a basic arrest. Um.
Speaker 1: I was actually out there with a couple of people.
Speaker 1: We had been going down a couple of nights to
Speaker 1: see what was going on at the Justice Center because
Speaker 1: you know, I have been you know, if you're just
Speaker 1: watching the news, all you see is, you know, it
Speaker 1: looks like one big march, right, Like it's one huge march.
Speaker 1: It starts in the daytime and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: it descends into madness at night. But quickly I realized
Speaker 1: that there's there's multiple things that are going on. If
Speaker 1: you leave your house, you know, you get the TV,
Speaker 1: it's a lot that's going on in the streets. So
Speaker 1: I started, you know, going out to see different things.
Speaker 1: And we were down at the j C and things
Speaker 1: got really gassy. It was one of the nights. So
Speaker 1: again it was the first like you know, a few
Speaker 1: days of gassing, and I had been down there before,
Speaker 1: and this time I brought a couple different people that
Speaker 1: were like, you know, I'm trying to see it, but
Speaker 1: I'm scared. I was like, just come with me. I'll
Speaker 1: show you what's going on. It's not that big of
Speaker 1: a deal. But we ended up um catching up with
Speaker 1: some other people down there and kind of had like
Speaker 1: a little group and we were and there were a
Speaker 1: lot of like teenagers down there, and so we were
Speaker 1: actually making sure a lot of people got out because
Speaker 1: there were cops everywhere, like circling and pulling people over
Speaker 1: and stopping people and arresting him. So we were like
Speaker 1: kind of helping folks navigate their way out and then um,
Speaker 1: as it got late, there were a bunch of people
Speaker 1: that were suffering from tear gas. And so myself in
Speaker 1: a medic and I have like a first day to
Speaker 1: training basic stuff, and so that those first nights I
Speaker 1: was out there with like you know, milk or the
Speaker 1: baking soda and water solutions and whatever else, just helping
Speaker 1: folks out. And so we were following the groans of people,
Speaker 1: you know, coughing and and being into tear gas, and
Speaker 1: the cops just rolled up with like four cars and
Speaker 1: eight officers hopped out and I got snatched up and
Speaker 1: it's got snatched up by that. I got grabbed by
Speaker 1: the hair, got young to the ground, bruised my elbow.
Speaker 1: You know, I had to creeck on my neck for
Speaker 1: a few days. But they arrested me. They drove me
Speaker 1: around a squad car for like fifteen twenty minutes. They
Speaker 1: picked up some other guy, Um, you know, they accused
Speaker 1: him of drawing on a drawing on a window with
Speaker 1: a sharpie or something, and he's like what and they
Speaker 1: were like, you know, they were trying to charge him
Speaker 1: with a felony. All of our charges got dropped. No
Speaker 1: one got charged with anything. I got charged with obstructing
Speaker 1: the police. He got charged with something else. As Mac
Speaker 1: was inside the police car, he was also able to
Speaker 1: get a sneak peek of how the police were targeting
Speaker 1: people for a rest behind the scenes. I thought it
Speaker 1: was crazy because they had this like thing in their car,
Speaker 1: like this like a heads up display like a HUT
Speaker 1: and it it it had like it had an airy
Speaker 1: o view of this of the downtown grid and it
Speaker 1: had like it was able to track people. And I
Speaker 1: thought that was it was like a call of duty
Speaker 1: to display like when you're like using like you know,
Speaker 1: the helicopter or whatever. It was like that, and like
Speaker 1: you could see like the people and they were like
Speaker 1: I represented like as lights a kind of there was
Speaker 1: like a light on them. It was like a it
Speaker 1: was like a black and white display and you could
Speaker 1: see the things that are moving. But then like with people,
Speaker 1: it basically lit them up with like lights and circles.
Speaker 1: It would a circle us um if we were in groups,
Speaker 1: and when the group's got small enough and they would
Speaker 1: like a turn green and the cops were just to
Speaker 1: go and rest people. The group of protesters gathered at
Speaker 1: the fence were quick to make a distinction between quote
Speaker 1: peaceful protests and non violent protests. While the massive Rose
Speaker 1: City justice marches remained peaceful, the crowds have to j
Speaker 1: C would engage in nonviolent actions such as shaking, tearing down,
Speaker 1: and cutting apart the chain link fence. Most of what
Speaker 1: people did at the j C was just standing in
Speaker 1: the street in parks while channey demands and slogans. But
Speaker 1: it didn't require people to tamper with the fence or
Speaker 1: throw a half drunk water bottles for the police to
Speaker 1: respond with force. As this protester can attest, I was
Speaker 1: downtown and it was back at the original fence, and
Speaker 1: you know, there was probably I probably estimate like five
Speaker 1: people there and everyone was really spread out, and um,
Speaker 1: there was no police on the ground. It was raining
Speaker 1: that night, and they had their floodlights like pointed at us. Um.
Speaker 1: And one shot got fired from one of the like
Speaker 1: the little balcony areas, the one that's farther to the right,
Speaker 1: and it hit me in the leg. It was just
Speaker 1: one shot and it hit me at the like the
Speaker 1: very top of my left thigh. And I was just
Speaker 1: standing there with a group of ends like I had.
Speaker 1: There was a beach ball in the crowd that night
Speaker 1: and it said don't gas me bro, And I picked
Speaker 1: it up and I started writing on it, and one
Speaker 1: shot got fired and it hit me in the leg.
Speaker 1: And that was what I would consider to be at
Speaker 1: least like protests related my first encounter with the Portland
Speaker 1: Police Bureau. No one was doing anything, No one was,
Speaker 1: you know, pushing on the fence or knocking on it,
Speaker 1: and they just fired a shot into the crowd and
Speaker 1: it hit me. Next you're going to hear from Garrison Davis.
Speaker 1: He was just seventeen in Portland's vehle and protests started,
Speaker 1: and for weeks he was out virtually every night, filming
Speaker 1: some of the most intense police violence and posting some
Speaker 1: of the most viral videos of the entire uprising. Here's Garrison.
Speaker 1: Every night. The fence at the Justice Center seemed to
Speaker 1: grow larger. The city doubled up some sections of the
Speaker 1: chain link and stacked pieces offense on top of one another. Eventually,
Speaker 1: concrete barriers were added to make it harder to knock
Speaker 1: over the fence. The divides between protesters began to widen
Speaker 1: as well. Some of the more radical leftist BLM activists
Speaker 1: in Portland criticized Rosity Justice and their insistence on quote
Speaker 1: peaceful protest over direct action that might damage police property.
Speaker 1: Gregory McKelvey, vice chair of organ DEM's Black Caucus and
Speaker 1: former organizer, pushed back on some of that criticism. Gregory
Speaker 1: was also organizing on a new front, now as Protest
Speaker 1: Gain Steam. He was in the home stretch of leading
Speaker 1: a grassroots style campaign for political newcomer Sarah I on
Speaker 1: our Own to take down incumbent Mayor Ted Wheeler. Many
Speaker 1: Portlanders felt Wheeler had failed on his promise to deliver
Speaker 1: fundamental change on issues of housing and please reform. Instead,
Speaker 1: Wheeler became a symbol of big money in politics more
Speaker 1: of the same. Gregory's candidate I on our Own ran
Speaker 1: to the left of Wheeler, dubbing herself and quote everyday
Speaker 1: anti fascist. So you know, uh, we had a situation
Speaker 1: where tens of thousands of people were marching every day.
Speaker 1: And if you're at those events, they're just beautiful, and yeah,
Speaker 1: they're way more liberal, they're way more moderate. Um, but
Speaker 1: those people are being marched along pun intended towards a
Speaker 1: more radical place. And you know, Malcolm X said more
Speaker 1: eloquently than me that basically, UM, you know everything, you know,
Speaker 1: there was a point where you didn't UM. And so
Speaker 1: these people are on their journey just as everybody else.
Speaker 1: And just because they're not anarchists yet does not make
Speaker 1: them agents of the state. UM. And I really think
Speaker 1: that those protests are what effectively got us the UM
Speaker 1: the twenty million defunded from the police. I mean, we
Speaker 1: had a moment where they were mass protests and Damian
Speaker 1: Lillard was at the front of a protest UM that
Speaker 1: was in capturing the entire city. Now, if you're wondering,
Speaker 1: yes he's talking about that, Davian Lillard, five time NBA
Speaker 1: l Star and Portland's Trailblazers superstar point guard day mean Lillard, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was out there too. Yeah. They weren't burning stuff down, um.
Speaker 1: And also some of their rhetoric was not, you know,
Speaker 1: as far left as maybe I would like or and
Speaker 1: and certainly that some people at the Justice Center would like.
Speaker 1: But I actually do think those protests were more effective
Speaker 1: and they certainly have far more support from the broad public.
Speaker 1: And we were getting people at these protests who had
Speaker 1: never protest before. Like I don't think the Justice Center
Speaker 1: protests should have stopped. And I don't think that they're
Speaker 1: ineffective per se um, but I think there's certainly much
Speaker 1: more effective if in tandem. There's also the other protests
Speaker 1: going on. So if I'm at home watching UM like
Speaker 1: Chanel two, six, eight or twelve, which I had to
Speaker 1: watch a lot for my job, UM, they're not making
Speaker 1: a difference between which protesters are which protesters. They're just
Speaker 1: saying protesters merged and Damian Lillard joined them. Later in
Speaker 1: the night, protesters were gased and beaten. Right that that
Speaker 1: UM way of explaining things is really helpful for all
Speaker 1: the protesters because um, they see that protests with Damian
Speaker 1: Lillard and they're like, oh, I support this, And then
Speaker 1: they see what they think is the same people getting
Speaker 1: gas that night, and they're like no, no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: And that helps us move the conversation towards the funding
Speaker 1: once those massive protests go away and we only have
Speaker 1: protests that Damian Lillard is never going to be seen
Speaker 1: at now. Uh now they have no support from the
Speaker 1: broad public. Early June is also when most of Portland's
Speaker 1: police reforms were achieved under large pressure both locally and
Speaker 1: from the nationwide BLA movement. The Portland's Public schools superintendent
Speaker 1: decided to end the school resource officer program, opting instead
Speaker 1: for an increased spending on social workers, counselors and culturally
Speaker 1: specific mentors for students, also historically racist. Portland's police unit
Speaker 1: was also disbanded. Here's more on that from Gregory. We
Speaker 1: got rid of some of the specialty units, including the
Speaker 1: Gang Enforcement Unit are formerly known as the Gang Enforcement Unit,
Speaker 1: which kept a list of mostly black individual tolls that
Speaker 1: they thought were gang members. Um and it really was
Speaker 1: a circle of our injustice car strol system um and
Speaker 1: was really abhorrent and racist. And they switched their name
Speaker 1: to the Gun Violence Production Team and a branding effort,
Speaker 1: but still had the same mandate. We got rid of
Speaker 1: that specialty unit. We defunded twenty something million dollars from
Speaker 1: the police, which, um sounds like a lot, but we
Speaker 1: were defunding from a lot of different bureaus because of
Speaker 1: the pandemic in the budget shortfall in general. Alongside those
Speaker 1: small reforms in early June, Portland also saw some negative
Speaker 1: change on the road to police accountability. The officers responding
Speaker 1: to protests were told they were allowed to cover both
Speaker 1: their nametag and badge number amid fears officers would be
Speaker 1: quote docked. Lawyer Alan Kessler explains this in greater detail. So, um,
Speaker 1: there's a directive that says that the police shall display
Speaker 1: their name on their uniform unless they get special dispensation
Speaker 1: from their their command or to not do it. Um.
Speaker 1: And the police are supposed to give you a business
Speaker 1: card if you as they're supposed to identify themselves, are
Speaker 1: supposed to give a business card which has their name
Speaker 1: and badge number on it. Right there. It's not supposed
Speaker 1: to be a secret police force. And the directives are
Speaker 1: there are several directives that are kind of about that
Speaker 1: uh interaction with the public. It turns out that very
Speaker 1: early in the in the protests, there was a an
Speaker 1: email that was sent out that told police that it's
Speaker 1: okay for them to cover their badge and then replace
Speaker 1: it with their It's called their personnel number or perner
Speaker 1: um spelled either PRNR or p E r N r H.
Speaker 1: And it's a it's a weird choice, like the only
Speaker 1: the only thing it was used for before that was payroll.
Speaker 1: It's in their accounting system. Oh and so historically it's
Speaker 1: been used in the on some internal investigations of police
Speaker 1: officers alike in internal review reports. Um. But the reason
Speaker 1: they picked it, like, uh, I kind of guess this
Speaker 1: at the time, but it was suit too silly to
Speaker 1: be true. Was there is a There aren't a ton
Speaker 1: of things that are exempt from the public records lot Oregon,
Speaker 1: but one thing that is exempt is UH numbers on
Speaker 1: an I D badge. Um. So somebody thought this through.
Speaker 1: Somebody who is really familiar with the public records thought
Speaker 1: this through and said, Okay, if we use the number
Speaker 1: from the I D badge as the cops badge number,
Speaker 1: then if anybody asked for the list, we'll say, no,
Speaker 1: those are secret numbers. That are you know, we have
Speaker 1: to keep them secret for the for the cops protection,
Speaker 1: which is nuts because they're wearing it out in public
Speaker 1: on their chest. But but there's like no way to
Speaker 1: trace it back in a digital for in, no way
Speaker 1: for us to for sure. The early marches had been
Speaker 1: absolutely enormous, but almost everyone there fell into the simple
Speaker 1: category of protester. There were some very overworked medics, but
Speaker 1: Portland's lacked the sheer variety of specialties among the activists
Speaker 1: that allowed Hong Kong's protest movement to persist for so long.
Speaker 1: That changed over the first few weeks of the uprising,
Speaker 1: as people who never thought of themselves as particularly radical
Speaker 1: fell into new rules. There were no longer just street medics,
Speaker 1: but shield bearing front liners, people armed with traffic cones
Speaker 1: and water to douse tear gas. Other activists provided food
Speaker 1: and equipment, and a handful of Portlanders began learning the
Speaker 1: trade of the conflict journalist, while Portland's professional press got
Speaker 1: used to packing body armor alongside their camera notebook. As
Speaker 1: an any mass movement, there was bound to be disagreements
Speaker 1: and in fighting. People had different opinions on everything from
Speaker 1: looting to dumpster fires, to how much fence shaking was
Speaker 1: acceptable and the usefulness of large marches that stayed completely peaceful.
Speaker 1: Despite those differences, people did keep coming out day after day,
Speaker 1: night after night, for the entire first half of June.
Speaker 1: Some of those people are still coming out even now. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was six kind of personally expecting just for people
Speaker 1: just to be maybe be protesting a week to you know,
Speaker 1: not not much and then you know, quote unquote back
Speaker 1: to normal life. But you know, yeah, and then it's
Speaker 1: been now five months, um at it so yeah, and
Speaker 1: I kept going because my I just felt really strongly
Speaker 1: to keep going, and especially with um what I was doing,
Speaker 1: um as for photographing at all, I just had this
Speaker 1: passion that I was like, Okay, I gotta keep going.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I've I haven't stopped. As June wore on,
Speaker 1: the number of people out at nightly demonstrations began to drop.
Speaker 1: Crowds of thousands became crowds of hundreds. A certain mania
Speaker 1: took over the increasingly hardened core of the Portland BLM movement,
Speaker 1: who seems to feel the need to confront police every
Speaker 1: single night without pause. It exhausted many protesters and journalists.
Speaker 1: Cosca describes the feeling, well, um, yeah, I mean it
Speaker 1: was it was every night, and it was it was NonStop.
Speaker 1: And I remember once, um when they when they when
Speaker 1: they had the double fences up in front of the
Speaker 1: Justice Center. I remember when some people walking away from
Speaker 1: it and they were telling me that the protest was canceled,
Speaker 1: and I said, there's no such things. Is canceling this?
Speaker 1: I was like this to me, I was I even
Speaker 1: said it on one of my videos and sound kind
Speaker 1: of cheesy, but I was like, this feels like the
Speaker 1: energy for this rebellion is coming from some some unknown place.
Speaker 1: Like like I said, it's felt almost supernatural because it
Speaker 1: was pushing people on their human limits. Like for me,
Speaker 1: I'm not the kind of person that will, you know,
Speaker 1: interrupt my sleep schedule for almost anything. But I didn't
Speaker 1: really sleep or eat or drink as you're supposed to
Speaker 1: do for almost two months because us so wrapped up
Speaker 1: in yeah, what was happening. And then I didn't know
Speaker 1: that for a while. I didn't know that other cities
Speaker 1: were still protesting for a long time because I you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't even have time to check the news because
Speaker 1: it would take me. You know, since I'm older, it
Speaker 1: takes me longer to recover from that of the whole
Speaker 1: you know what, I would be recovering the whole time,
Speaker 1: not protesting while I was not protesting, to be recovering
Speaker 1: from protesting. That pretty much all I did for almost
Speaker 1: two months. Looking back on the early days of the uprising,
Speaker 1: you can see all the little things that happened in
Speaker 1: order to transform this into more than just a regular
Speaker 1: protest every day. The brutality from the previous night rekindled
Speaker 1: people's desire for change. Repeated tear gassings forced the crowd
Speaker 1: to get good at reforming after being dispersed. As the
Speaker 1: days turned into weeks, protesters started mirroring Hong Kong tactics.
Speaker 1: More and more established activist groups provided support for new
Speaker 1: activists with new ideas. On June seventeenth, inspired by Seattle's
Speaker 1: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, Portland protesters announced plans for an
Speaker 1: autonomous zone of their own. This a Z was limited
Speaker 1: to a single city block in front of Mayor Ted
Speaker 1: Wheeler's luxury condo, where protesters set up tents, eight pizza,
Speaker 1: and played dance music late into the night. The Portland
Speaker 1: police ousted the occupation early the following morning, but protesters
Speaker 1: were clearly learning valuable lessons. Drinks, pizza, medical support, and
Speaker 1: a speaker system arrived within the first hour of the occupation.
Speaker 1: Barricades went up soon after, followed by the arrival of
Speaker 1: the Autonomous zones very own porta potty. By the time
Speaker 1: the police swept through in the early morning, a surprising
Speaker 1: amount of infrastructure had been set down in a very
Speaker 1: short amount of time. That action ultimately failed, but as
Speaker 1: protests continued through the city, infrastructure would spring up again
Speaker 1: and again. Throughout the first half of June, a framework
Speaker 1: was put in place that would transform Portland's Black Lives
Speaker 1: Matter protests into a movement that could hold on and
Speaker 1: dig in for more than half a year. Uh Where
Speaker 1: the grandpops who couldn't fathom the obamacist? I don't hate
Speaker 1: America just to man, she keeps the promises twenty teens
Speaker 1: looking like the sixties. It's crazy, a nationwide deja wo
Speaker 1: what my people post to do? Go to schools named
Speaker 1: after the clan founder. We're around town, isa, I don't
Speaker 1: see why we're frowning Native American students forced to learn
Speaker 1: about wind o'pellah Sarah. How is that fair? Bro? Some
Speaker 1: heroes unsung in some monsters get monuments built for them.
Speaker 1: But it ain't be all a little bit of monster.
Speaker 1: We crook it. Man, Your heroes are worthless and man
Speaker 1: can show private only God gives purpose. You crook it.