Speaker 1: Damage around the courthouse. Up up until July, there was
Speaker 1: relatively little on a national level that separated Portland's b
Speaker 1: l M protests from the ones happening everywhere else. A
Speaker 1: few shots of tear gas walls had gone viral in
Speaker 1: the mainstream media, and live streams of Portland protests were
Speaker 1: popular among a certain set, but as far as the
Speaker 1: big networks were concerned, Portland was just another city convulsed
Speaker 1: with riots in the summer of That all changed in July.
Speaker 1: It started with the siege of the Federal Courthouse on
Speaker 1: July four. While that was going on in the streets
Speaker 1: of the Rose City up north in Seattle, an activist
Speaker 1: named Summer Taylor died that night after a car plowed
Speaker 1: through a b l M march. On the eighth. Activists
Speaker 1: in Portland staged a memorial vigil for Taylor. This was
Speaker 1: disrupted by a small squad of federal agents who hit
Speaker 1: the crowd with flash bangs and impact rounds as they
Speaker 1: lit candles. Feelings were raw, but the crowd gathered near
Speaker 1: the Justice Center that night numbered less than a hundred.
Speaker 1: You could be forgiven for thinking that the Battle of
Speaker 1: July four had been the last gasp of a dying movement.
Speaker 1: Outside of the attack on the vigil, the rest of
Speaker 1: the week followed the same pattern established in June, tiny
Speaker 1: groups of ragged activists being horribly beaten by riot lines
Speaker 1: of cops. It was exactly one week later, on July eleven,
Speaker 1: that everything changed. That night, a twenty six year old
Speaker 1: protester named Donovan Labella was shot in the head at
Speaker 1: close range by a U S marshal armed with an
Speaker 1: impact weapon. His skull was shattered. Donovan nearly died. Video
Speaker 1: of the unprovoked attack went viral nationwide. Our own Garrison Davis,
Speaker 1: was standing just a few feet behind Donovan when he
Speaker 1: was shot. Here's how Garrison recalls that night. So I
Speaker 1: got downtown around nine pm, kind of just a regular
Speaker 1: time to arrive Usually that's like a bit before action starts.
Speaker 1: But when I got there, the streets around the courthouse
Speaker 1: and Justice Center were already filled with tear gas. Um,
Speaker 1: there was already feds out in the streets. Um, it
Speaker 1: was unclear what got them out. Um it turns out
Speaker 1: it's just because people were on the were on like
Speaker 1: the courtyard. So there's already already people in the streets
Speaker 1: and stuff and Feds in the streets by the time
Speaker 1: I arrived. And then the Feds got pushed back into
Speaker 1: uh into like the courtyard by a small group of
Speaker 1: activists UM on like fourth Avenue. And then they started
Speaker 1: when when the Feds were on the courtyard, they just
Speaker 1: started shooting like canisters from their grenade launcher. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is like I don't know, I've only been there
Speaker 1: like ten minutes at this point. All this is happening
Speaker 1: very very quickly. UM, and the Feds shoot off like
Speaker 1: five canisters in a row that are all like duds,
Speaker 1: they don't actually do anything. UM. And one of them
Speaker 1: lands underneath the car, and a young man holding a
Speaker 1: boombox kind of like kicks it out from under the
Speaker 1: car because it was like sparking, but it wasn't like
Speaker 1: doing anything. It wasn't like exploding or shooting off any gas.
Speaker 1: And then after he after he get kicked it out
Speaker 1: of the out of under the car, he picked up
Speaker 1: just to boombox and was standing in the standing on
Speaker 1: the sidewalk across the street from the courthouse. I was
Speaker 1: like five feet was right, and then he just got
Speaker 1: shot in the head. Um. After Yeah, it was just
Speaker 1: just standing there with the boom box and he collapsed
Speaker 1: claps on the ground. I remember hearing. I mean I
Speaker 1: heard that the shot, and I heard the fall. I
Speaker 1: didn't see him fall, and but by the time I
Speaker 1: looked over, um, she was on the ground, bleating out
Speaker 1: of his head. And you know, very quickly people came
Speaker 1: over and grabbed him. The thing, the thing that sticks
Speaker 1: out most is when when they when they grabbed him
Speaker 1: and pulled him away, just how limp his body was like,
Speaker 1: it was a very lifeless body. His head was like
Speaker 1: bobbing everywhere, which probably wasn't you know, it wasn't great. Um.
Speaker 1: You should you know, when you're picking someone up like that,
Speaker 1: you should try to make sure that doesn't happen. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was, it was, it was. He was
Speaker 1: just so lifeless. Um in that in that moment um
Speaker 1: they took him into the into the park, semitics started,
Speaker 1: you know, people, people yelled, medic medic. Medics came over
Speaker 1: started to you know, try to stop the bleeding, and
Speaker 1: an ambiliance came about like ten fifteen minutes later. But
Speaker 1: like it, it felt it felt a lot longer. You know,
Speaker 1: it felt like they were taking forever to arrive. Um,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot, a lot of blood on the sidewalk,
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of blood in the park.
Speaker 1: The grass was like soaked. Donovan very nearly died from
Speaker 1: his injuries. As we write this episode in December, he's
Speaker 1: just recently been released from the hospital following another round
Speaker 1: of treatment for the infections caused by his injuries. He
Speaker 1: has suffered permanent cognitive damage. The brutality with which Donovan
Speaker 1: was assaulted enraged Portlanders, even those would not previous e
Speaker 1: been active in the streets. Rage was further stoked by
Speaker 1: poor coverage by local mainstream sources like The Oregonian, who
Speaker 1: responded to this brutal attack on a young man wielding
Speaker 1: a boom box by grenade launcher wielding FEDS with an
Speaker 1: article full of expert analysis on why it had happened.
Speaker 1: Those experts included a retired commander with the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Department who insisted the shot, which was taken from
Speaker 1: about thirty feet away, had to have been an accident. Quote.
Speaker 1: Nobody anywhere in the world that I am aware of,
Speaker 1: is taught to aim for the head unless deadly forces
Speaker 1: also authorized in this particular case, there was no rational
Speaker 1: way to say that deadly force was authorized. Overall, the
Speaker 1: article was crafted to leave the reader with the opinion
Speaker 1: that Labella's injuries must have been a tragic accident in
Speaker 1: the heat of the moment, rather than an angry and
Speaker 1: undisciplined federal agent choosing to permanently injure a twenty six
Speaker 1: year old armed with speakers. The good news is that
Speaker 1: no one bought it. Portlanders were outraged by what happened
Speaker 1: to Donovan. More protesters began to trickle into the nightly
Speaker 1: demonstrations out side the Justice Center, which switched their attention
Speaker 1: to the adjacent Federal courthouse. Conor O'sha had gotten his
Speaker 1: start attending Rose City justice marches. He switched over to
Speaker 1: attending the nightly confrontations against the police after he got
Speaker 1: bored of marches that seemed to go nowhere. They'd be like, wait,
Speaker 1: what's going down by the Justice Center and what's happening
Speaker 1: over there? I want to go over there? Why is
Speaker 1: everybody going back home? Like the sun is still out?
Speaker 1: Like this is I want to go see what's happening
Speaker 1: over there, And then started doing that and then was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this feels right this feels like you know, like not
Speaker 1: not to say like that, um, you know, having h
Speaker 1: march during the day with like speeches like like you know,
Speaker 1: all the protesting is valid, but I was definitely attracted
Speaker 1: to like showing up at the sources like the biggest,
Speaker 1: the gnarliest symbols of what what people are protesting against.
Speaker 1: Connor watched as the protest dwindled, and he saw how
Speaker 1: the introduction of heavily armed federal agents and the outrage
Speaker 1: over Donovan's injury started drawing more people out into the streets.
Speaker 1: Before the Feds showed up, Um, it really felt like
Speaker 1: we were losing a lot of not necessarily momentum. But
Speaker 1: just like people showing up, numbers were kind of coming
Speaker 1: down a little bit is to be expected. But yeah,
Speaker 1: when they did make an appearance, like aggressive appearances, it
Speaker 1: totally it was it totally served as a catalyst for
Speaker 1: further like like when when they shouldn't know by now,
Speaker 1: like when they show up, uh you know, cops and feds. Um,
Speaker 1: when they when they show their face, it's like almost
Speaker 1: always worst um like in terms of like a crowd response, um,
Speaker 1: which I kind of love. UM. So so when they
Speaker 1: showed up. It was like like almost immediately everyone was
Speaker 1: like turning turning back up UM in huge numbers. So
Speaker 1: that was it was just so funny to me that
Speaker 1: they that they kind of kept doing what they were
Speaker 1: doing UM when the crowd response was just getting amplified
Speaker 1: by their presence. Many in the movement were rejuvenated by
Speaker 1: the fact that protest numbers were growing again. After so
Speaker 1: many nights of watching Tinier and Tinier groups get brutalized
Speaker 1: by the Portland police, it was stirring to feel like
Speaker 1: people cared again. Mark Pettibone's first night out had been
Speaker 1: June one, and like Connor, he'd been dismayed as numbers
Speaker 1: fell off throughout that month. He kept coming out though,
Speaker 1: and he was out protesting near the Federal Courthouse with
Speaker 1: Connor when the night of July fourteenth turned into the
Speaker 1: early morning of July. It was actually a relatively uneventful
Speaker 1: night in terms of sho between protesters and the cops. UM.
Speaker 1: The uh PPB showed up i think once to kind
Speaker 1: of remove some barricades that people have set up in
Speaker 1: the street in front of the UM the courthouse, and
Speaker 1: the Feds made a really kind of quick uh they
Speaker 1: came out of the building to um, if you're facing
Speaker 1: the Justice Center, that came out the building to the
Speaker 1: right briefly and then retreated back in. And so honestly,
Speaker 1: that night I spent what I remember from uh early
Speaker 1: in the night was I was playing frisbee with people
Speaker 1: in the park. We were just hanging out. Um. There
Speaker 1: wasn't much too kind of be angry at um, at
Speaker 1: least visibly, the Feds weren't out and about. Uh So
Speaker 1: Mark and I were like, all right, this has been good.
Speaker 1: It's been fine, I guess, um, not much going on.
Speaker 1: Let's get out of here. We've got to work tomorrow.
Speaker 1: We just we had just gotten out of work a
Speaker 1: couple hours before, so, like midnight or one clock rolls
Speaker 1: around and we're leaving, and as we're walking back to
Speaker 1: his car, we kind of get stopped by some protesters
Speaker 1: on the corner of the street there just a couple
Speaker 1: of blocks away, and uh they warned us that they
Speaker 1: had seen or that people had seen unmarked vans kidnapping people. Um.
Speaker 1: And so we're we're looking around, and sure enough, right
Speaker 1: then a van pulls up right in front of us,
Speaker 1: seemingly out of nowhere. Um, and a bunch of guys
Speaker 1: in military fatigues jump out. I look in it. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're probably FEDS. I don't know. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: fucking minivan full of guys and fatigues. Cameo fatigues. Uh.
Speaker 1: They opened the doors. Everybody but the driver it's out.
Speaker 1: They start they start just walking straight towards us. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we're like, what what the what? What? What the fuck?
Speaker 1: And there's you know, there's traffic behind us. UM. I
Speaker 1: remember Mark and I like almost getting hit by a
Speaker 1: car that had to stop because we're like, oh, I
Speaker 1: think we need to run. So we all take off
Speaker 1: in different directions. You know, there's no no identification, um
Speaker 1: visually and also audibly. You know, they didn't say stop,
Speaker 1: we are you know so and so it was just
Speaker 1: immediate and uh so we we kind of you know,
Speaker 1: we ran for our lives. And they ended up the
Speaker 1: people and the fatigues who ended up being the FEDS.
Speaker 1: They chased me down, one one chased me down on foot. UM.
Speaker 1: So I ran, I'll see west and made it a
Speaker 1: few blocks, took a turn and heard the van kind
Speaker 1: of accelerating up the hill cut me off. And so
Speaker 1: I dropped to my knees and I asked why, UM
Speaker 1: several times. That was all I could form. Honestly, I
Speaker 1: wasn't like why, why is this happening? And am I
Speaker 1: being detained? It was just why? And uh So they
Speaker 1: lifted me up, UM, off my knees, put me in
Speaker 1: the van, UM, pulled my beanie over my head, patted
Speaker 1: me down. UM asked if I had weapons, and you know,
Speaker 1: I said no. Uh. And at this point, I I
Speaker 1: it was kind of this weird you know, people always
Speaker 1: talking about these out of body experiences and I, you know,
Speaker 1: I had no experience with any of that until this happened.
Speaker 1: Mark booked it. Um west, I went south. I was
Speaker 1: kind of running next to somebody for a minute, uh,
Speaker 1: like you know, maybe fifteen ten seconds, and then I
Speaker 1: cut up another kind of a block web. After I
Speaker 1: got one block south. I think the FED that was
Speaker 1: the FED or FEDS that were after me and this person,
Speaker 1: Like I think they either went after that person or
Speaker 1: like they forgot about me or something. Maybe it was
Speaker 1: just because I was able to run faster. I huck
Speaker 1: my sign that I've been carrying, got it back the
Speaker 1: next morning. That was cool. UM hucked my sign that
Speaker 1: I was carrying, and UM running up another block. UH,
Speaker 1: fucking like scared for my life, I was able to
Speaker 1: be like, I just don't talk to these people. UM.
Speaker 1: At this point I was pretty sure that it was
Speaker 1: the FEDS, UM, and it wasn't some kind of rogue,
Speaker 1: you know, militia group. And I figured the best thing
Speaker 1: for me to do at that point it was just
Speaker 1: to shut up and um and get through and asked
Speaker 1: for a lawyer when the time comes. UM. At that point,
Speaker 1: I hit a dark street and I see what is
Speaker 1: either that same van or a different van cut across
Speaker 1: in front of me going north. I think that was
Speaker 1: they were trying to find Mark. And at that point
Speaker 1: I looked looked over and saw I forget what the
Speaker 1: name of the it was another courthouse, of course, because
Speaker 1: there's like a d down there. UM. I I look
Speaker 1: at this like concrete um railing whatever you wanna call that,
Speaker 1: um out front of this courthouse. And I'm like there
Speaker 1: and okay, yeah there, I'm going to jump this. I
Speaker 1: sprint across once the van gets out of sight, because
Speaker 1: they started to loop back around the block. Yeah, sprint
Speaker 1: jump over it, jump over the little barricade and UM.
Speaker 1: At this point I didn't I was sure they were
Speaker 1: going to get me. UM. The only thing I could
Speaker 1: think to do was to shut my phone off, which
Speaker 1: I now no can still be traced, which is also horrific.
Speaker 1: But I have a Faraday bag for that now, so
Speaker 1: that's great. UM. But I shut my phone off. I
Speaker 1: hear more like another banner to assume, UM driving by
Speaker 1: like very kind of erratically, like gunning it and then
Speaker 1: slowing down. I heard like that. I think that was them.
Speaker 1: I'm not positive. I heard someone in in like boots
Speaker 1: with some jingling going on walk past. UM. I just
Speaker 1: like tucked up against this barricade, UM and was just
Speaker 1: like as quiet as I could be for I don't
Speaker 1: know how long, half hour, an hour, until I was
Speaker 1: able to get in touch with a friend. They booked
Speaker 1: it across the river. They showed up. I they opened
Speaker 1: the back door of this car, jumped in, stayed laying
Speaker 1: on my back like I don't I don't think we
Speaker 1: covered me up with anything, but it was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was terrifying enough to be like, I don't know
Speaker 1: why why they targeted at us, So yeah, I got
Speaker 1: out of there and then get a call from Mark
Speaker 1: relatively quickly after I got to the other side of
Speaker 1: the river. I was like, like, because we we friends
Speaker 1: were texting, I think like Emily and and another friend
Speaker 1: of ours. Like we were like, they were like, we can't,
Speaker 1: we can't get in touch with Mark. We think they
Speaker 1: got him. They did have Mark, but thankfully he'd broken
Speaker 1: absolutely no law. The agents who had snatched him had
Speaker 1: probably hoped that he'd be rattled enough by the whole
Speaker 1: experience to answer whatever questions they asked. When he refused
Speaker 1: to talk without a lawyer present, they had no choice
Speaker 1: but to let him go. The whole thing took about
Speaker 1: two hours, maybe even less. And uh so I was
Speaker 1: released with one other person, and I believe it was
Speaker 1: one of the protesters that I had been standing next
Speaker 1: to um in the street when the vans first pulled up. Um.
Speaker 1: I think they ended up picking them up as well.
Speaker 1: So they released the two of us at the same time.
Speaker 1: And you know this is after they read me my
Speaker 1: rights once I was shackled and in a cell um
Speaker 1: and asked if I wanted to waive them UM, and
Speaker 1: I said no, I want to talk to the lawyer. UM.
Speaker 1: So after that they came by again and said, okay,
Speaker 1: you're free to go. That same night, a local activist
Speaker 1: filmed federal agents and camouflage and military gear snatching another
Speaker 1: black clad protester and dragging him into an unmarked rental van.
Speaker 1: The video was horrifying, the kind of blatantly dystopian police
Speaker 1: state ship that couldn't not provoke a national response, and
Speaker 1: it did. Within a day, the video had been viewed
Speaker 1: millions and millions of times. The story broke nationwide in
Speaker 1: the seventeen when The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, and basically every
Speaker 1: major news source reported on Portland's federal snatch fans. Now
Speaker 1: we have some video that was posted to Twitter from
Speaker 1: last night. The Post says that federal officers rushed up
Speaker 1: and arrested someone for no reason. Unmarked police vehicles they're
Speaker 1: not even they're not police vehicles, they're just vehicles. They're
Speaker 1: rentable vans. They're like consumer rentable vans filled with guys
Speaker 1: in paramilitary gear who are supposedly federal policemen. Unmarked vans
Speaker 1: of unleashed tear gas into crowds, rounded up and detained protesters,
Speaker 1: and even shot one man in the head with a
Speaker 1: non lethal round, causing serious injury. Their presence and their
Speaker 1: tactics have raised questions about the use of federal agencies
Speaker 1: to police cities, even when local authorities don't want them there.
Speaker 1: We Ddovan LaBelle Is shooting had enraged people, but it
Speaker 1: was the federal snatch fans that would finally radicalize thousands
Speaker 1: of Portland's liberal majority to take to the streets. It
Speaker 1: was on the night of the first group of what
Speaker 1: would become the Wall of Moms showed up to protest
Speaker 1: the Feds. We'll talk about them in a second, but
Speaker 1: first here's Garrison to explain another important action that occurred
Speaker 1: the same night. The militarized FEDS had captured Portland's imagination.
Speaker 1: But as the Quote fed war started to ramp up,
Speaker 1: protesters who had been fighting the police for weeks didn't
Speaker 1: want people to forget the reason all of this had
Speaker 1: happened in the first place. They organized a rally simply
Speaker 1: titled Quote Abolished the Police for June eighteenth at Peninsula
Speaker 1: Park in North Portland. The event was boosted by groups
Speaker 1: such as the YLF and Direct Action Alliance, people who
Speaker 1: were generally trusted within the community of veteran activists. The
Speaker 1: last time a protest had been held at Peninsula Park
Speaker 1: was June. The crowd had marched to the Portland Police
Speaker 1: Association building, which had been surrounded by dozens of armed cops.
Speaker 1: Police quickly pushed the crowd away using Truncheon's, grenade launchers
Speaker 1: and tear gas. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that the
Speaker 1: crowd of several hundred who showed up on the eighteenth
Speaker 1: came expecting a fight. Banners at the front of the
Speaker 1: march included quote, Chad Wolfe listens to Nickelback, mocking the
Speaker 1: acting DHS director, who had just visited Portland a few
Speaker 1: days prior and also spoke with the p p A.
Speaker 1: Other banners read de colonize and mourned the dead fight
Speaker 1: like hell for the living. One banner read Quantas Hayes
Speaker 1: was only seventeen years old. In February seen Portland police
Speaker 1: shot and killed Quantas Hayes, an unarmed, teenage black Portlander.
Speaker 1: When they shot Kawanas, he was on his knees ten
Speaker 1: to fifteen feet away from officers, aiming guns and shouting
Speaker 1: contradictorary commands. Officer Andrew Hurst, who was providing quote long
Speaker 1: cover with his air fifteen fired three shots at the
Speaker 1: teen when Kuanas reportedly moved his hands from above his head.
Speaker 1: At the same time Kuanas was shot from moving his hands,
Speaker 1: other officers were ordering him to get face down on
Speaker 1: the ground with his hands by his sides. The Portland
Speaker 1: Police use of force investigation found no wrongdoing on the
Speaker 1: part of Officer Andrew Hurst. He still walks around with
Speaker 1: a badge and a gun today. The lead use of
Speaker 1: force investigator on that case was Detective Eric camemer but
Speaker 1: Portland protesters might know him better as the notorious Officer
Speaker 1: sixties seven. Speaking as a journalist who has watched the
Speaker 1: Portland Police riot team and action, officer Camemra is quite
Speaker 1: possibly the most violent man I have ever met. All
Speaker 1: of this was on the mind of the press in attendance.
Speaker 1: When the crowd departed Peninsula Park at around eight pm,
Speaker 1: we suspected they would head straight for the Police Union building,
Speaker 1: but that's not what happened. The people at the front
Speaker 1: of the march headed in that direction at first, but
Speaker 1: as the crowd got close to the union building, they
Speaker 1: made a sudden turn, confusing the police and probably some protesters.
Speaker 1: The march went on southward for about half an hour,
Speaker 1: chanting along the way. Soon enough, the crowd arrived at
Speaker 1: the surprise destination, the Portland Police North Precinct. Only a
Speaker 1: handful of officers were present when the group of marchers
Speaker 1: approached the building, and said officers quickly moved inside. As
Speaker 1: they did, hundreds of people chanted quit Your Job protesters
Speaker 1: hung out in the precinct parking lot for almost an hour.
Speaker 1: Officers had been so surprised by their arrival that a
Speaker 1: police car was left sitting unattended in the middle of
Speaker 1: the crowd. It was tagged with graffiti and a bananappeal
Speaker 1: was placed on its hood, but nothing else. As was inevitable,
Speaker 1: The police el red eventually arrived and ordered the crowd
Speaker 1: to leave under threat of arrest and tear gas. On
Speaker 1: previous evenings, the crowd would have just stood around, defiant
Speaker 1: and waiting to get all beaten up and gassed, But
Speaker 1: tonight was different. As the el rad blared threats, people
Speaker 1: in the crowd yelled b water, echoing a Hong Kong slogan,
Speaker 1: and the crowd began to move once again back to
Speaker 1: North mL. Cable of art fether to follow this direction,
Speaker 1: based up a que to arrest. The citation are used
Speaker 1: of more, including crowd control munitions. The tactical decision to
Speaker 1: move after the el Rad's warning apparently bamboozled the police,
Speaker 1: as the nearly five hundred protesters were able to swiftly
Speaker 1: march north to the completely unguarded p p A building.
Speaker 1: Dumpsters were overturned to block the street, and protesters in
Speaker 1: black block assembled a makeshift battering ram out of random
Speaker 1: materials nearby. No one said anything, but the crowd knew
Speaker 1: what was about to happen. People were going to enter
Speaker 1: the Police Union building. Dumpster fires were started to block
Speaker 1: the police from seeing what was happening. In due time,
Speaker 1: the el Red arrived and an audibly nervous El Red
Speaker 1: operator ordered people not to enter the p p A
Speaker 1: police He visit the redial area. We noticed criminal activity
Speaker 1: occurring in this crowd at the office. You'll be study
Speaker 1: to arrest or support them, to include crowd control munitions.
Speaker 1: But for the Portland police it was too little, too late.
Speaker 1: People had already broken through the front door of the
Speaker 1: Police Union building and lit a small fire inside. As
Speaker 1: soon as the riot police arrived, the crowd began dispersing.
Speaker 1: People had no desire to fight the cops. This night,
Speaker 1: they'd achieved their goal and now it was time to run.
Speaker 1: Like how police chase the crowd for a few blocks,
Speaker 1: shooting off tear gas, tackling and arresting anyone they could
Speaker 1: get their hands on during bullrushes. As the dwindling group
Speaker 1: of protesters entered residential side streets, it was more difficult
Speaker 1: for the police to follow and easier for small affinity
Speaker 1: groups to break off and disperse. It was in these
Speaker 1: residential streets that the vast majority of protesters successfully lost
Speaker 1: not only the cops, but also the small group of
Speaker 1: journalists who were jogging to keep up. When we interviewed
Speaker 1: some folks with the y LS, the Youth Liberation Front,
Speaker 1: they mentioned this night as a sort of turning point
Speaker 1: for some protesters. Newer people realized what could be done
Speaker 1: by a crowd that was cunning and disciplined and committed
Speaker 1: to not getting the pists beaten out of them by
Speaker 1: the police. Here's the y LS as a reminder, we
Speaker 1: redubbed the audio due to the constant death threats against
Speaker 1: these literal children. I think eventually people just got burnt
Speaker 1: out and realized like something had to change. And we
Speaker 1: did start like making Twitter threads suggesting some changes, and
Speaker 1: so maybe that push things in that direction. And I
Speaker 1: think people have started to have been sizing up the
Speaker 1: opponents more realistically and finding cops may have worked in
Speaker 1: like the first few days of the uprising, but we
Speaker 1: honestly like in the protests that are happening now, they
Speaker 1: don't have enough resources to like effectively push them back,
Speaker 1: and the cops have a bunch of experience with crowd controls.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and I think I think now, like since
Speaker 1: all this time has passed, there's enough points that you
Speaker 1: can point to and see this was an effective tactic
Speaker 1: in reference to being water, like the first time p
Speaker 1: PA was set on fire, the way people were able
Speaker 1: to move in and out, and I don't remember how
Speaker 1: many people got arrested that night, but it was it
Speaker 1: was definitely, I mean, it was definitely less than the
Speaker 1: normal amount. And I think that was the big first
Speaker 1: instance of people being able to point this tactic used
Speaker 1: in Portland and be like see effectiveness this worked. That's
Speaker 1: got people home safe to an extent. We mentioned quote
Speaker 1: being water a few times now. This was a term
Speaker 1: for a tactic used during the Hong Kong uprising. It
Speaker 1: derives its name from a famous Bruce Lee quote that
Speaker 1: Hong Kong activists repurposed as a guide for how to
Speaker 1: move in situations where police are chasing you. The quote
Speaker 1: reads like this, be like water making its way through
Speaker 1: the cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object,
Speaker 1: and you shall find your way around it or through it.
Speaker 1: If nothing within you stays rigid outward, things will disclose
Speaker 1: themselves empty. Your mind be formless, shapeless, like water. If
Speaker 1: you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup.
Speaker 1: You put water into a bottle, and it becomes the bottle.
Speaker 1: You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot.
Speaker 1: Now water can flow or can crash? Be water, my friend.
Speaker 1: Here's how the Wire Left describes Portland's process of learning
Speaker 1: to be water. To some extent, it was being exposed
Speaker 1: to the tactics of the Hong Kong protest, but a
Speaker 1: lot of doctrines weren't really adopted. But I think also
Speaker 1: there has been a lot of trial and air because
Speaker 1: people have tried a lot of stuff that didn't work
Speaker 1: and they got their ship fucked. And I just think
Speaker 1: that has been the best way to learn what works,
Speaker 1: especially in our unique conditions. I think a big part
Speaker 1: of people embracing becoming water that as a tactic was
Speaker 1: getting fed up with getting her kicked out of them
Speaker 1: well like like I mean, okay, I mean staying and
Speaker 1: fighting the police is usually not the right tactical decision
Speaker 1: because in Portland we have an extremely militarized police force
Speaker 1: and they're always going to be better equipped than us.
Speaker 1: That's is how it's going to be. And so you
Speaker 1: have to think about, like what am I What is
Speaker 1: the risk versus the reward of staying and fighting this
Speaker 1: cop versus just disappearing in the night to fight another day.
Speaker 1: And I think that goes hand in hand with the
Speaker 1: decentralization of the movement when like you know, when it
Speaker 1: had like when there were marches with people leading with
Speaker 1: megaphones walking around and then suddenly the police show up
Speaker 1: and you have your conflict. People didn't have the agency
Speaker 1: or their own agency to really disappear into the night
Speaker 1: and move on from that, like people felt obligated to
Speaker 1: follow somebody. So I definitely think that played a role
Speaker 1: in Portland moving towards decentralization also played a role in that.
Speaker 1: Now my colleague, Beatrix is going to explain what happened
Speaker 1: in downtown Portland in front of the Justice Center in
Speaker 1: the Federal Courthouse at the same time as the rally
Speaker 1: at the Portland Police Association. While about five hundred people
Speaker 1: had gathered in North Portland don ight, around a thousand
Speaker 1: had gathered downtown at the Justice Center and the adjacent
Speaker 1: Federal Courthouse. Signs reading Unquelled referenced the statement by President
Speaker 1: Ump days earlier that Portland had been out of control
Speaker 1: and that federal presence had very much quelled it. On
Speaker 1: the six, Homeland Security Director Chad Wolfe had made national
Speaker 1: headlines when he visited Portland and referred to protesters there
Speaker 1: as violent anarchists sixty times. In a single press statement
Speaker 1: discussing the use of fireworks by protesters on ly four,
Speaker 1: Wolfe declared, perhaps prophetically, a federal courthouse is a symbol
Speaker 1: of justice. To attack it is to attack America. Quick
Speaker 1: historical footnote here in September of federal judge rule that
Speaker 1: Chad Wolfe was likely unlawfully serving as acting Director of
Speaker 1: Homeland Security during the entirety of his tenure in that position.
Speaker 1: We during Wolf's visit Mayor Wheeler had said that he
Speaker 1: and all city officials would refuse to meet with the
Speaker 1: DHS head if invited. However, the day after Wolf's visit,
Speaker 1: the Portland Mercury reported that Darryl Turner, the head of
Speaker 1: the Portland Police Association, had met Chad Wolf without approval
Speaker 1: from either the mayor or the police chief. Chief level
Speaker 1: would not say definitively whether any officers had met with DHS,
Speaker 1: but photos showed uniformed PPB officers speaking to Chad Wolf
Speaker 1: during his visit. The action targeting the Portland Police Association's
Speaker 1: union headquarters in North Portland was one response to these events.
Speaker 1: The protests downtown, likewise, were driven by anger over Donovan Labella,
Speaker 1: federal overreach, and the federal snatch fans. While the North
Speaker 1: Portland crowd was made up of mostly experienced activists, the
Speaker 1: folks of the Justice Center represented a broader cross section
Speaker 1: of Portlanders. Several images from the eighteenth went viral, both
Speaker 1: nationwide and locally, and would bring more of the city's
Speaker 1: liberal majority out into the streets. One such video showed
Speaker 1: a fifty three year old Christopher David surrounded by tear
Speaker 1: gas approaching armored federal agents. According to mister David, a
Speaker 1: Navy veteran, he wanted to ask the men how they
Speaker 1: felt about violating their constitutional oath. Instead, the video shows
Speaker 1: one of the agents gripping his baton two handed like
Speaker 1: a baseball bat, and smashing it into David's arms and
Speaker 1: legs five times. Another agent then steps forward and maces
Speaker 1: David in the face as he stands motionless. He walks
Speaker 1: away after the attack, middle fingers raised on his broken hands.
Speaker 1: As of this recording, video of the assault has been
Speaker 1: viewed more than fifteen million times. Another viral moment came
Speaker 1: when a group of about forty people calling themselves Moms
Speaker 1: against police brutality and dressed in white or horribly tear
Speaker 1: gassed by federal agents. Videos of the attack incensed thousands
Speaker 1: of Portlanders and led to the creation of the famous
Speaker 1: Wall of Moms. Courtney is an indigenous Hawaiian Portlander. She's
Speaker 1: one of the moms who came out on July eighteenth.
Speaker 1: Here's what she recalls. It was like a smaller It
Speaker 1: wasn't as big as like the after when it started
Speaker 1: to really take off. It was probably like twenty left
Speaker 1: at that point, and definitely didn't know what I like
Speaker 1: I had no idea what to walk into. What I
Speaker 1: was walking into. I mean, I've been protesting before, especially
Speaker 1: for like land rights and things like that and what,
Speaker 1: but not like anything against police brutality and things like that.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, just, you know, we roll up and
Speaker 1: then not even not probably like two or three hours later,
Speaker 1: but like the fads come out and just start shooting
Speaker 1: at us. And that was and I was like the
Speaker 1: frontline then because I didn't know what I was walking into.
Speaker 1: I just didn't know like what, I had no idea
Speaker 1: what was going to happen. I had seen the videos
Speaker 1: the night before, but like I you know, I just
Speaker 1: didn't know what to expect. I didn't think it was
Speaker 1: going to be as violent as it was. Um So, yeah,
Speaker 1: that night, like they guessed the ship out of everyone
Speaker 1: as always, but that they actually got hit by like
Speaker 1: rubber bullets that night. I still have a scar from
Speaker 1: like a pepper ball like on my shoulder from the
Speaker 1: first night that I want to out and oh yeah
Speaker 1: that was my that was my first night out. Corney
Speaker 1: recalls being struck by the extremity of the violence, how
Speaker 1: sudden and overwhelming it all was. I honestly like just
Speaker 1: did expect. Um. I didn't expect the close range shooting.
Speaker 1: First of all, I didn't expect like the amount of
Speaker 1: gas that they were using on people. Um. I just
Speaker 1: you know, it's different when you're like watching it on
Speaker 1: like a stream versus like actually being there in person,
Speaker 1: especially if there was like the line that we were
Speaker 1: standing in the first night that I was there, there
Speaker 1: was probably like seven of us, and they there were
Speaker 1: like ten Feds just shooting at all of us just
Speaker 1: standing there like trying to like guard yourselves behind an umbrella.
Speaker 1: And they clearly knew that there were like moms out
Speaker 1: there because that was the night where we're all like
Speaker 1: wearing yellow and like we were standing out and it
Speaker 1: was majority of us were just females standing there, and
Speaker 1: they just did not get like if they just they
Speaker 1: just did not care. It didn't matter, it didn't matter,
Speaker 1: and um, so that was shocking. I definitely, like I
Speaker 1: don't think that I've processed really anything that's gone on,
Speaker 1: um and just like check it away for another day.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's I just I didn't expect the like
Speaker 1: the extremity of it. Within hours of the first major
Speaker 1: gassing by federal troops, a DHS memo was leaked to
Speaker 1: The New York Times revealing that the Feds in the
Speaker 1: courthouse had not been properly trained with any of the
Speaker 1: riot control munitions they were using. Instead, the DHS officers
Speaker 1: had been responding to unarmed protesters with military tactics rather
Speaker 1: than mere dispersal. The goal was shock and awe, to
Speaker 1: shatter all resistance with a display of overwhelming violence that
Speaker 1: would leave its targets frightened and broken. Instead, as Costco describes,
Speaker 1: Portland took away a very different message. I felt it
Speaker 1: felt disgusting to me. It felt they mean, even though
Speaker 1: I knew they worked at military, they felt like the military,
Speaker 1: because they all looked like the military. They're all to
Speaker 1: me all looked really young too, and they were very uh,
Speaker 1: They're very aggressive and very quick to act in violence.
Speaker 1: To me, they seem more afraid about us than like
Speaker 1: Portland police were you ever seemed afraid of us? And
Speaker 1: so I think I don't know if that made them
Speaker 1: react and fear more, but they were definitely more aggressive,
Speaker 1: and I knew it was going to turn into a circus.
Speaker 1: The following night, July, well over one thousand people filled
Speaker 1: Chapman in Loundesdale the two parks in front of the
Speaker 1: Federal Courthouse and the Justice Center. The group of moms,
Speaker 1: now in matching yellow t shirts and helmets, numbered in
Speaker 1: the hundreds. It was easily the largest crowd since the
Speaker 1: end of the Rose City Justice daytime marches. Medics came through,
Speaker 1: handing out tear gas wipes and eye flash bottles and
Speaker 1: the mom's linked arms before moving to form a living
Speaker 1: wall facing the fence recently erected around the mark O.
Speaker 1: Hatfield's Courthouse. Many of the people who came out that
Speaker 1: night were new to the confrontation downtown. As Dmitria Hester
Speaker 1: describes it, they were greeted as welcome reinforcements because we
Speaker 1: knew all was coming. As black people, we know the
Speaker 1: torture and the abused that the police give us, so
Speaker 1: we were very prepared. We had respirators, we had math,
Speaker 1: we had helmets. We made sure that all the mom
Speaker 1: had equipment and everything they needed to get through the night.
Speaker 1: From the open doors of the courthouse, agents and battle
Speaker 1: dress could be seen moving into position in the darkened
Speaker 1: lobby as the Feds very own el rad warned against
Speaker 1: attempts to damage then behind the wall of moms in yellow.
Speaker 1: The rest of the crowd was also getting into position,
Speaker 1: and a chant of Feds go home was taken up
Speaker 1: by hundreds of voices. Unlike the enormous daytime rallies from June,
Speaker 1: this crowd had not come to march. After more than
Speaker 1: an hour of chanting and singing, answered by scattered pepper
Speaker 1: balls and flashbangs from the Feds, a few sections of
Speaker 1: the fence were removed by protesters, and soon the whole
Speaker 1: fence came down. That night, the crowd fell back under
Speaker 1: the ensuing tear gas barrage. Federal agents advanced through the
Speaker 1: park and protesters retreated, but slowly and with a smattering
Speaker 1: of shields and umbrellas blocking some of the federal munitions.
Speaker 1: The night of Lounsdale and Chapman were an unbroken sea
Speaker 1: of thousands. People worked their way across the park with
Speaker 1: buckets of rubbers, squeaky pigs. Speeches echoed over the p
Speaker 1: a from the steps of the boarded up Justice Center
Speaker 1: under the words fed goons out of PDX, projected in
Speaker 1: letters five ft high. The wall of Moms was joined
Speaker 1: by a self described wall of Dad's, wearing safety orange
Speaker 1: and equipped with leafblowers to disperse tear gas. Here's Demetria again.
Speaker 1: The das came with the leaf blowers. I mean they
Speaker 1: came with protection. They guarded us and disprotecting each other.
Speaker 1: The shields, too had multiplied, made out of plywood, foam,
Speaker 1: and fifty gallon plastic drums. The boards over the courthouse
Speaker 1: doors and windows had been fitted with small hatches, in
Speaker 1: an echo of the PPB strategy from the days of
Speaker 1: the Justice Center fence. This time, when the first tear
Speaker 1: gas grenades came through the hatches, the crowds surged forward.
Speaker 1: This rush of activity was followed by a long, tense
Speaker 1: slow for two hours. The crowd sang and danced, yellow
Speaker 1: clad moms forming a kick line where the fence had
Speaker 1: stood only a day earlier. The mood was celebratory and fierce.
Speaker 1: Using sections of chain link, fence, lumber, and other debris,
Speaker 1: members of the crowd wedged shut some of the doors
Speaker 1: and hatches covering the front of the Federal Courthouse. Some
Speaker 1: people tore at the plywood covering the courthouse door with
Speaker 1: their bare hands. There was no coherent strategy to this,
Speaker 1: but the sentiment was unmistakable. Portlanders were no longer on
Speaker 1: the defensive against the federal occupation. When federal agents finally
Speaker 1: emerged from the building, it was less a clean charge
Speaker 1: and more a series of shoves. After a scuffle with protesters,
Speaker 1: one agent responded by drawing his side arm and pointing
Speaker 1: it at eye level into the crowd. Protesters backed up,
Speaker 1: but few people actually left. Instead, they fell back slowly.
Speaker 1: Images of that night are surreal men in camouflage and
Speaker 1: plate carriers pointing rifles at the chest of teenagers and
Speaker 1: tank tops and respirators as smoke bombs from the crowd
Speaker 1: mixed with clouds of tear gas and HC smoke. The
Speaker 1: Feds never formed a coherent line and many people remained
Speaker 1: in the park throughout the first push. I the bulk
Speaker 1: of the crowd waded back into the gas and smoke
Speaker 1: blanketing Loundsdale Park. A shield wall formed up in the
Speaker 1: middle of Southwest Main Street and held Elaine remembers it
Speaker 1: this way and then the first time actually seeing that
Speaker 1: on the ground um federal l eos coming into shoot
Speaker 1: at people and the shield wall forming up and just
Speaker 1: holding ground, And it was amazing to see how the
Speaker 1: federal forces didn't seem to know how to what to
Speaker 1: do with people just standing their ground and protecting themselves,
Speaker 1: and so they just were shooting and shooting and shooting,
Speaker 1: and there was this incredible moment where suddenly I heard
Speaker 1: this like it was the farting sounds of their peat
Speaker 1: ball guns that they were shooting pepper balls and rubber
Speaker 1: balls at the protesters. Was just running out of air
Speaker 1: because the shield wall was holding and people were keeping
Speaker 1: it together and protecting the people behind them. Despite the
Speaker 1: fact that many of the federal agents on the line
Speaker 1: were armed within four rifles. Those holding the shield wall
Speaker 1: along Southwest Main Street lobbed back gas canisters and glass
Speaker 1: bottles at the officers. Then the shield walls started moving
Speaker 1: forward to the repeated lines fuck you, I won't do
Speaker 1: what you tell me from Rage against the Machines, Killing
Speaker 1: in the name. Shockingly, almost miraculously, the Feds started falling back.
Speaker 1: After about ten minutes, the shield line advanced to the
Speaker 1: end of the block and the Feds withdrew to the
Speaker 1: steps of the court House. On July seventeenth, Chad Wolf
Speaker 1: had declared via tweet, we will never surrender to violent
Speaker 1: extremists on my watch now. At about one am, after
Speaker 1: one of the most intense nights of federal violence thus far.
Speaker 1: Lonsdale Park was full of people and Chad Wolf's Federal
Speaker 1: agents had scrambled back inside their fortress, low on ammunition
Speaker 1: and clearly rattled. Several DHS agents tried to prop close
Speaker 1: a door that had been shattered by enraged moms and
Speaker 1: teenagers with skateboards. Others attempted to fire out of murder holes,
Speaker 1: only to be stymied in this by teenagers hucking dozens
Speaker 1: of bottles at their gun hands. The fedgs would push
Speaker 1: out again that night, but federal charges no longer provoked
Speaker 1: protesters into automatic retreat. Portland had gotten a taste of
Speaker 1: what it felt like to face down the violence of
Speaker 1: federal agents, and they even seemed to like it. For
Speaker 1: the next several weeks, the city would begin to treat
Speaker 1: fighting the Feds as a citywide pastime. In our next episode,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about how this dystopian side mission became the
Speaker 1: setting for a national media spectacle, how an armed coup
Speaker 1: took over a rib restaurant, and so much more. Uh
Speaker 1: where the grand pops who couldn't fathom the obamacist I
Speaker 1: don't hate America, just to me and she keeps the
Speaker 1: promises looking like the sixties. It's crazy, a nationwide deja
Speaker 1: what my people post to do go to schools named
Speaker 1: after the clan founder were around town? Is I don't
Speaker 1: see why we frown in etive American students forced to
Speaker 1: learn about wind o'parah Sarah. How is that fair? Bro?
Speaker 1: Some 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