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