WEBVTT - The Fed War: Part 2 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:01.960 A year before his death, and one of his most 0:00:02.000 --> 0:00:05.720 revered speeches, Martin Luther King Jr. Named three main evils 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:10.879 plaguing America racism, poverty, and war. Decades later, the fight 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:13.720 for Black Lives unfolded into Portland streets in a fashion 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:17.160 few could have imagined, transforming small city blocks into daily 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:21.759 battle grounds. As the fed wars continued, protesters, fortified numbers 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:25.119 swelt in Portland grabbed the nation's attention. Out of state 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:29.280 media flew into town searching for juicy headlines. Likewise, a 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.720 network of opportunists live streamers traveled to Portland, hoping to 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:39.440 capture what many activists dubbed riot porn video of police gassing, snatching, rushing, beating, berating, 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:43.320 and arresting Portlanders. And alongside all this less obvious but 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:47.560 much more impressive, an infrastructure of resistance began to grow. Angry, 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.160 chanting signs and tearful demands were augmented by mutual aid. 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:53.840 More than a month then, Portlanders learned that if they 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:56.400 were going to last against the paramilitaries of both the 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:58.640 president and the mayor, they were going to have to 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.680 take better care of each other. For the cops, things 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:05.080 had gotten pretty routine at this point, stop criminal activity, 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:09.720 protect property, but federal escalation begged the question would Portland's 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:14.240 back down? Despite grievous bodily harm, unmarked federal snatch fans, 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:18.000 and overwhelming use of riot munitions, Portlanders continued to fill 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:21.640 the streets past the fiftieth straight day of protests, and 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:24.839 the answer to the question will Portland back down became 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:36.200 increasingly clear. No, here's my colleague in getting exposed to 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:40.280 chemical weapons Elaine Kinchen to continue the story. The battle 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:44.039 against Trump's Feds gained Portland nationwide notoriety in the summer 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:47.800 of but many longtime activists on the scene, like Max Smith, 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.160 considered the whole fight to be at best something of 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.560 a distraction, a fight and fence that wasn't what we 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:57.000 were here for. You know. The fence was like some 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:59.360 ship that kind of it was like to call at 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.080 the Grand Theft autos aside mission like this is, this 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:03.960 has nothing to do with what we're supposed to be 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:05.960 doing right now, but we have to complete this to 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:09.320 get back in the game, you know. And it was 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:13.360 really weird, and I think at that moment I really 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:18.040 realized that the distraction was intentional and that this was 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:20.800 all getting just diverted to become like a like a 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:25.560 Trump campaign at you know, he's gonna come through and 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:29.040 support these police unions and this is his big commercial 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:32.440 for it. So it was a very uh, I felt 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:35.640 like it was a frustrating part of the protest because 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:37.800 a it was really a dangerous and people were really 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:39.919 getting hurt and kidnapped and all that kind of weird stuff. 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:42.799 And then on top of that, it wasn't the fight 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:46.040 that I wanted to, you know, to be fighting, but 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:47.840 it was. But it's the fight that brings out a 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:52.519 lot of people. So a very contrasting and confusing time. 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.480 For sure. Thousands would attend each night, and the atmosphere 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.560 began to resemble a strange nightly festival, ending in the 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:00.640 wee hours of the morning with a halts by federal 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.560 officers and clouds of poison gas. A man with a 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:05.679 gas mask and hockey stick showed up one night to 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:09.480 knock canisters away. Teams of people with lacrosse sticks followed. 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.800 When lines of federal agents pushed forward, launching gas grenades, 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:17.119 walls of protesters would now regularly toss the rounds back 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:20.839 into and behind the fedlines. As protesters behind them used 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.440 leafblowers to direct the gas back at the courthouse, and 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:25.840 squads of medics and the re retreated people as they 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.280 rotated in out of the front lines. The Federal Courthouse 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:32.400 had many of the windows of its facade destroyed by 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:35.480 fireworks and projectiles, and the clouds of gas rendered the 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:39.360 bottom seven stories of the building uninhabitable. Assaults on the 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:42.720 fence were an integral part of nightly protests. Erected at 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.839 a cost of two hundred thousand dollars and later reinforced 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.600 with concrete barriers, it was repeatedly dismantled by protesters and 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:53.280 piled in front of courthouse doors. The city, too wanted 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:56.480 the fence gone. It was blocking a bike lane without permits. 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:59.160 City attorneys sent a cease and desist letter to the 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:03.360 federal government. Portland's City Commissioner, Chloe you Daily, stated the 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:05.800 fence is an abuse of public space and the threat 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:09.440 to the traveling public, and that this illegal action will 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:12.760 not be tolerated in our community. You Daily leveled the 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:15.800 fine of five hundred dollars against the federal government for 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.839 every fifteen minutes that the fence remained on city property, 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:22.640 or forty thousand dollars a day. By August, the fines 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:27.280 topped five hundred thousand dollars. Protest regular cramberly describes the 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:31.200 new turn in the protests as resembling a festival. I 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:34.839 think like night is what it made it go from 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:37.720 life this is interesting to like, this is a full 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:44.400 blown night, the actual spectacle um, the actual spectaclog. But 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:51.719 it was huge, and I don't know it was I 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:56.719 about all the stuff having much fun. It was so 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:01.720 much fun, honestly, the nice like it was no there 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:05.640 was some scary traumatic ship that happened, and I was 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:09.280 genuinely scary for my whole last life a couple of times. 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:14.719 But like I don't know, if I tell everybody felt 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:18.279 like a succestival where you also thought cops. Did that 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:21.560 make sense because if you were just like at the 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:24.800 j C, you could see the fact the j C 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:30.599 courtous like el right, ever is you know something? You 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.080 know what I mean? You walk by you just send 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:37.920 people do oh? Ship? Is that I was drugs? So 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:40.280 it really felt like a music festival and there was 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.480 a lot of fun um you know, I guess it's 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:47.800 also scary the energy and the tension, you know, super 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:51.920 high as a fence. The fence period is like early 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:55.200 fence days were like we're shaking the fence. That specifically 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:59.040 my favorite serious just because everyone which is so I 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:01.480 raid at that point, like why of a fence? And 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:06.120 it came back to like lawnmower or not more sleep flowers. 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:08.720 They came back to leaf blowers and knows what night 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:14.680 I saw like multiple people of circular songs and I 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:19.200 just really loved the enginuity of great type of shield 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:22.720 walls of a great time someone through Uh do a 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:27.920 cheer gap and answer back across. Yeah, Uh, it's gonna 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:30.160 be me talking to my kids in that fifty years. 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:33.680 One of the things that became clear early into the protests, 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:36.040 even before the Feds came, is that if you didn't 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:38.320 have a gas mask, you were going to need one. 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:40.800 COVID had already given the world a bit of a 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.919 post apocalyptic feel between the looming danger of the virus 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:46.920 and everyone being behind masks, but the growing number of 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:51.279 respirators that actions accentuated that the immense quantity of gas 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:54.120 that the federal forces used made respirators and gas masks 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.440 unnecessary piece of equipment, and as the summer dragged on, 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.400 protesters began mobilizing to get respirators into the hands of 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:04.159 all that needed them. Sixteen year old Ariana Moorehead says 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:06.480 that she's got her first gas mask over the summer, 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:10.160 I just died through mutual aid, you know, the community, 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:15.200 bringing everything, everybody together. Um, we probably from Freedom actually 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:18.680 had a couple gas masks donated to them, so that's 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:22.880 where I got mine from. Uh. The helmet I got 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:26.520 from another group by organized with which is our Streets PDX, 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:30.360 And then I forgot working on my goggles from but yeah, 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:33.920 just you know, the community. After a few bouts with 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:37.720 police and right Ring militiaman, her uniform had graduated. Now 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:39.880 every night she went out, she was ready from head 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:42.360 to toe in an outfit she never expected she would need. 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:45.640 The first couple of nights was really bad tear gas 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:47.720 and I'm like, okay, mom, mune system can't do this. 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:50.800 Like I just had milk to save my eyes from 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:54.040 you your gas. But now I had goggles, a helmet, 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:58.680 a gas mask. Uh, and a lot of people have 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:00.400 been wanted to get me a bullet for the but 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:03.280 I haven't gotten one yet, you know, just in case, 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:07.400 because I'm pretty known by a lot of white supremacis. 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:11.480 So it's kind of triggering for me. Um, Like I said, 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:14.640 I've got not sent to my house, like God, We're 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:16.520 not like God like still like I'm gott to be 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:18.200 sent to my house. But I've gotten some through my 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:20.640 go fund me. I've had some sent to my number. 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:23.200 I had to change my number and everything. I've had 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:30.200 some saying over email, social media. It's crazy. So I 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:32.760 just need to be you know, safe at all times. 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:37.240 But yeah, right, it gives like helmet goggles, face masks. 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:40.480 Max Smith describes needing to get better gear as the 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:43.920 violence from federal forces grew more intense. The first thing 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:49.080 was like, oh, ship, I need equipment. I got a 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:50.680 helmet in the face shield and got shot in the 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.520 face like a day later. So you know, I saw 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:56.240 on video I was watching a Dre's when he got 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:59.520 hit in the head um with a gas canister. H 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:03.000 at last ready to skull. So I started seeing like, oh, 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:05.839 people are getting hurt out here. I had actually saw 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:08.920 I was his name of Chris the taser face. I 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:12.199 had seen him the day before he got beat and 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:13.800 I was with the buddy of my world that that 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:15.679 guy is huge who was this guy over here? We 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:17.560 were like just talking about how big this guy was. 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:19.319 And the next day I see him on the news 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:22.240 getting his ass bet, you know, and I'm like, wow, 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:24.640 Like they're really beating everybody up out here. And there 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:28.040 were thousands of people out there, and people were like 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.679 just being massively, just beat in mass and that's the thing. 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:33.920 And people didn't have masks or anything. We were just 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:36.280 getting tear gas and going to the corner and walking 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.400 to sixth Avenue and getting our faces flushed out and 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:43.280 walking back down again. You know, I remember the solid 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:46.920 at Deity being crazy, but I also remember thinking, this 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:50.280 is not what the hell we're here for. Another activist 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:53.280 also describes the process of gearing up. The first night 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.040 that I went up to the Justice Center at you know, 0:09:56.120 --> 0:10:01.480 the original fence, I had on a her jeans, boots, 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:07.080 a sweatshirt, and a hat. And you know, that went 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:11.280 from that night when it was raining, and then on 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:16.520 my birthday actually, which is June, um my dad texted 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:19.520 me and said that he spotted me on a live 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:22.320 stream because I was wearing like a plaid shirt and 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:24.480 a pair of light colored jeans. And then that was 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.120 kind of when it clicked for me. They're like, Okay, 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.640 this is why people are consistently wearing black down here, 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:32.920 Like you don't want to be recognizable, even though I've 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:35.480 never you know, thrown anything or let anything on fire, 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:39.280 tagged anything, like, you know, just not being able to 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:43.720 spot someone is you know, it has its values, um 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:48.800 and it went from you know, jeans and a sweatshirt 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:53.000 to needing a respirator and goggles, and then to needing 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:58.360 a vest, a bulletproof vest, helmet, you know, all the 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:00.240 different gear that we've needed to make sure that we 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:06.400 just protect ourselves. It's not about us weaponizing. It's not 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:10.760 about us buying a bunch of guns when we're you know, 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:12.960 to carry around when we're down at the protests. It's 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.560 not about that. It's about making sure that we don't 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:18.760 die and then we don't get hurt. And I was 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:22.480 there the night that Donovan was shot, Like I was 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:24.400 the person that ran across the park to go get 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:28.200 the medics. And that was a huge awakening moment, Like 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:30.280 I saw a brain fluid come out of his nose, 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:35.360 you know, like that's a that's a big moment to know, like, Okay, 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:37.440 we should probably make sure that that doesn't happen to 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:41.720 a bunch more of us. Keeping people breathing became integral 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:43.840 to the protesting and at the end of July, as 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:46.880 the gas intensified, Team Raccoon work to get filters to 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:50.600 the protesters that needed them. We got a little bit 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:57.160 of money from mutually donations and we were wondering what 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:01.960 because part cleans are pretty low cost, you know, trash bags, 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:05.000 trash grabbers, doesn't cost a lot of money to maintain that. 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:07.840 So we were wondering, like, what do we do with 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.920 this money that will really help our community. And we 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:14.240 were noticing the air quality and Loudsdale and Chapman getting 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:16.760 worse and worse and worse because of the tear gas 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:19.439 and the chemical munitions every night. Even just walking through 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.160 there during the day, you wanted to put your respirator on. 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:27.760 At the end of July, so we we're connected to 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:33.400 some researchers who wanted to keep a certain level of anonymity, 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.760 and we decided the best way to do that was 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:41.040 through us. We could accept filters from the protest community 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:44.160 and we could give them to the researchers. The researchers 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:46.880 could conduct their studies and the privacy that they want 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:51.880 and we could use mutual aid money to facilitate that. 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:56.040 So that's how it started. UM. We were able to 0:12:56.280 --> 0:13:02.360 locally sourced respirators through a local company UM and to start, 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:07.000 I think we got about four cases of filters and 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.280 then started getting respirators after the fact to kind of 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:15.920 like both keep people safe and promote like the Filter Exchange. 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:17.720 If you don't have a respirator, now you do. Now 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:19.920 you can participate in the filter Exchange later on, and 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:24.360 then there's another data point for our scientists. So we 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:28.040 were already set up doing the respirators, doing the Filter 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:33.200 Exchange program. We had a lot sitting around and on 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:38.000 the hundred Days and Ventura Park. It was a big 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:42.000 event and I was not there that night, but I 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:46.640 did watch it from the live streams and it was horrifying. 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:50.880 As Trump's troops catapulted Portland into the national spotlight, cameras 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:53.360 descended on the city. For more than a month, the 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:56.160 protests had been covered by a small group of local reporters. 0:13:56.800 --> 0:13:59.520 Suddenly the New York Times, the Washington Post, and every 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.480 major news network were crowding around the Federal courthouse on 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:06.120 a nightly basis. Right Around the time the Fed War started, 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:09.959 a federal judge passed the temporary Restraining Order banning federal 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:13.840 agents from attacking marked press. Whether this stopped any brutality 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.000 is up for debate. The press freedom trackers statistics suggests 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:19.360 the Portland press were assaulted more often than press in 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:23.080 any other city in What the restraining order did was 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:25.520 explode the number of people who went out with cameras 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:28.480 to live stream and film. The sheer number of people 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:31.840 with cameras became an issue for many activists. At times, 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:34.840 it was physically challenging just to maneuver around the courthouse, 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:37.800 so much space was being taken up by people marked press. 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.800 All this documentation also caused a problem for protesters taking 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:45.120 a legal direct action against federal agents and property. The 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:48.160 flood of cameras amounted to constant live surveillance from every 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:52.160 conceivable angle. Black block and umbrellas helped to shield people, 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:55.320 but there was no perfect solution. Direct action was hampered. 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:58.640 Midway through the Fed War, The Oragonian, a local paper, 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:02.000 was able to get a journalists inside the Federal courthouse. 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:05.080 They took a picture inside the command center, which featured 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.480 a large computer monitor showing numerous live stream feeds of 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:12.240 the protests. This convinced many committed activists that streamers were 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:14.640 their enemy, and the fact that live stream footage was 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:18.120 used in federal charging documents seemed to support that. However, 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:21.160 the matter was not that simple. Early live streams of 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:23.600 police violence had played a major role in getting thousands 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:26.560 of Portlander's out into the streets. Over and over again, 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:28.680 we heard stories from activists who first learned how to 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:31.240 handle tear gas or who were radicalized to start coming 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:35.360 out because they watched streams. Federal law enforcement clearly used 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:38.400 live streams for intelligence as well, but it's also very 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.360 possible they made certainly Oregonian took a picture of their 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:44.000 wall of live streams because they saw the streams as 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:46.960 a major avenue by which protesters recruited more numbers and 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:51.440 built public sympathy. Whatever the truth, that Oregonian article convinced 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:53.640 several members of the press to stop live streaming and 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:56.400 to move to more carefully posting short videos of the action. 0:15:57.000 --> 0:15:59.920 As a result, live streaming was increasingly done by new 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.320 bees who had flooded into Portland's seeking easy cash. The 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:07.000 streamer apocalypse would continue as people brought gimbals and started 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:09.720 plugging their cash app every five minutes on stream. It 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:12.160 should be noted there were also a number of Portlanders 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:14.120 who slapped press onto their helmet in the hope that 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:16.440 they wouldn't get beat up as much, which some might 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:18.680 call a damning indictment of the state's use of force 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:35.880 as the FED war raged on. One local critic was 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:39.680 especially vocal about the optics of the protests. In double 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:43.680 A CP Portland's chapter president, Pastor E. D. Mondane, described 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:47.120 the protests as devolving into white spectacle. In a widely 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:51.760 circulated Washington Post op ed quote from the article what 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.880 are Antifa another leftist agitators achieving for the cause of 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:58.440 black equality? The mall of Moms, while perhaps well intentioned, 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:01.360 ends up redirecting attention away from the urgent issue of 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:04.960 murdered black bodies, he stated, before asking Portlanders to vacate 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.400 the streets and instead to begin fighting at schools, city councils, 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:12.119 and other governments now. While he also called for the 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.160 Feds to leave, Pastor Mondane's call for Portlanders to pull 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:17.840 out of the streets drew the ire of many organizers 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:21.080 on the ground. It also earned Mondane airtime on national 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:24.400 news outlets, which only ended when a lengthy expose later 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:27.520 that fall revealed that he had been alleged of engaging 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:30.280 in sexual, mental, and emotional abuse by nearly a dozen 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:33.400 members of his church. Now since the fourth of July, 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:35.560 one of the regular and most revered sites at the 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:39.080 protests was Riot Ribs, a free pop up barbecue food cart. 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:42.199 Riot Ribbs was so beloved in Portland that even local 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:44.960 politicians who had been negative about the protests were hard 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:48.280 pressed to say a single bad word about them. The 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:51.480 restaurant had started operations the night of July four, thanks 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:54.840 to a former Black panther named Lorenzo, Riot Ribbs quickly 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:57.879 became a large scale operation, feeding protesters and helping the 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:01.200 local homeless population. After a couple of weeks, the operation 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:05.240 expanded into clothing donations, a large medical tent, resume help, 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:09.040 and haircuts. The Ribs made local dining news, and protesters 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:11.240 would often wait in line through clouds of tear gas 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.600 to get them. They were pretty darn good. Volunteers cleaned 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:17.240 the park and supplied equipment to protesters and again to 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:21.200 the local house. Was Population Morgan, currently with Team Raccoon, 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:23.880 who volunteered at Riot Ribs describes some of the work 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:26.600 that they would do well. So the park clean itself 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:32.840 m for volunteers was basically just UM show up. We 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:34.919 have trash grabbers. You get to keep a pair of 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:38.320 gardening gloves, UM, so you have something to protect your hands. 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:42.800 We have sanitizer masks, anything that anybody would need, and 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:45.159 that would just focus on picking up litter around the park. 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:50.200 But myself and a couple of UM people that were 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:56.920 doing with Riot Ribs every day we took the the 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:02.199 biggest hits on the bathrooms. UM. Even at one point 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:05.440 UM like during cart cleans, I would have volunteers picking 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:08.040 up litter and picking up trash. But one thing I 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:12.040 would go and do is I would get cat litter 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.840 and put cat litter down behind the bathrooms, which is 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:19.080 where people were peeing usually. UM. It was getting to 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.840 be a sanitation issue. So what we were doing was 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:23.960 we were putting cat litter down and then scooping it 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:27.000 away when I got used, and then putting fresh litter down. 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:31.679 So myself in a couple of people from Riot Ribs 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:37.600 were really doing the majority of that dirty work UM 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:44.400 and volunteers were UM doing basically litter clean up and 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:47.399 just general maintenance beds, however, had a different view of 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:50.120 the operation well. The rain of tear gas and munition 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:54.080 seemed largely indiscriminate. Volunteers at Riot Ribs were regularly pelted 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:57.520 with rubber bullets and even arrested. An early morning sweep 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:01.200 at Chapman and Loundesdale Squares even saw least booting houseless 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:04.600 people from the respective parks, seizing all of Riot Ribbs equipment, 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.320 and arresting nine people, some of whom had helped run 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.440 the cart. During the raids, Federal forces would pepper spray 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:14.440 the grills and ruined donated equipment. In response, volunteers would 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:17.320 dutifully take the ruined lit grills and dump them over 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:20.480 the fence around the Federal Courthouse. One night, during a 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:23.760 federal rush, all of the donated medical supplies were sprayed 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:27.280 with mace, as of course, ruined them. Every time Riot 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.480 Ribbs was targeted and its crew arrested, its equipment destroyed, 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.160 more donations would come in, new people would come over 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:36.359 to volunteer, and new equipment would be you know, provided. 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:38.639 In just a couple of weeks, the effort, which had 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:41.280 started as just a one man operation, had raised more 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:44.760 than three hundred thousand dollars to keep going. But just 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:47.440 as quickly as the love came, there were new questions 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:50.960 about the group's operations. In fact, both Wall of Moms 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:54.200 and Riot Ribs soon faced sharp growing pains as new 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:58.080 money and spotlights of attentions bred creeping suspicion among some 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:02.120 in the activist community, and even doubts about safety. Courtney, 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:05.119 who had started out protesting with Mall of Moms, described 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:07.280 the night out with them that convinced her to quit. 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:13.720 So um. That night, in particular, I know that that 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:17.200 was the first night that actually mom got arrested. There 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:20.520 was one mom in particular that like she got arrested, 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:23.040 but then she also got her head Like I don't 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:25.000 know if they shot her directly in the head, but 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:30.000 that's when she had her head busted open. So throughout 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:32.920 that night I was like, this is just not that, 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:35.840 this is just not right. Like I don't understand they 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:39.280 have like this these Facebook pages and these twitters and 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:42.440 all this kind of stuff to like communicate things with people, 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:45.280 and nothing was communicated in a way for like to 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:50.399 mentally prepare these women when they show us UM. And 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:52.320 so that just throughout the night I was just so 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:53.840 annoyed with all of that, and I was like, you 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:57.879 know what, Like I'm not gonna wear out. Towards the 0:21:57.960 --> 0:21:59.680 end of the night, my friends and I actually had 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:02.760 shirts on underneath, and we like literally took our shirts, 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:05.840 our yellow shirts off, and we're like, we're not doing 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:09.439 this anymore. Most fed war nights followed a similar pattern. 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:12.200 Huge crowds would gather. They would yell and throw things 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:14.520 over the fence or damage the fence until the Feds 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:16.959 came out and force and pushed the crowd back. Then 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:19.360 the Feds would go back inside, the crowd would reform, 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:21.600 and the cycle would repeat itself until there was no 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:24.800 one left. Midway through all of this, Portland Mayor Ted 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:28.200 Wheeler went out and stood in the tear gas with protesters. 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:31.280 On national media, his tear gassing was portrayed as bravely 0:22:31.359 --> 0:22:35.080 standing with his city against federal overreach. The people actually 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:39.520 protesting in downtown Portland felt very different. Ted was heckled constantly, 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:42.440 his bodyguard had to keep people away from him, and 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:45.720 as he was leaving, horribly tear gassed activists dumped bags 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:48.840 of spent riot munitions that Wheeler's cops had fired at them. 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:51.640 Onto the ground in front of him. More than anything, 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:55.159 Most protesters seemed to enjoy watching Ted suffer after he 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:58.440 had caused such pain for all of them. Courtney continues 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:01.440 on about that night. So the next night was the 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:05.760 night that Ted came out, and we ended up deciding 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:07.480