Riots struck again Saturday in Portland, Oregon, as mobs vandalized the offices of Portland’s police union.
The offices of the Portland Police Association have been a target of past unrest, and that continued Saturday until police were able to disperse the rioters after an hours-long confrontation.
The evening began with what police termed “peaceful” marches, but the tenor of the mob changed as the night wore on and one group split off to target the union offices.
At about 10:30 p.m., “Portland Police began making public address announcements informing the crowd they were to not to engage in criminal activities. People within the crowd committed crimes when they erected a fence, pushed dumpsters into the street to block traffic, set a dumpster on fire, vandalized the PPA office with spray paint, and destroyed security cameras,” stated a release from the Portland Police Bureau.
An hour later, “people within the crowd broke the window to the PPA Office, unlawfully entered, and started a fire, committing the crimes of criminal mischief, burglary, and attempted arson,” the police bureau reported.
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Although Portland officials had insisted that it was the presence of federal agents in Portland that had inflamed the city’s rioters, federal agents left the city at the end of July, according to CBS News.
On Saturday, the Portland police statement noted that “Officers from the Oregon State Police and PPB arrived in the area to disperse the crowd. They were met with a hostile crowd who began throwing glass bottles and paint balloons at them. The hostile crowd also tried to injure officers by shining green lasers into their eyes, which is a crime in Oregon.”
Police reported that three officers were injured.
Journalist Andy Ngo was on the scene and shared a video of the incident on Twitter:
WARNING: The video below contains vulgar language that some viewers may find offensive.
Antifa rioters brawl with Oregon State Police in north Portland. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/AIhdD0veUd
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) August 9, 2020
Breaking: Portland Police declared a riot. #Antifa broke inside the union hall and set the inside on fire. This is the third time they’ve broken into the police union and the second time they set fire inside. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/wC2gKhzLcL
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) August 9, 2020
Scenes of chaos in north Portland as #antifa rioters start fires all over. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/K4yLQKs9a1
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) August 9, 2020
Overnight on 8–9 Aug, hundreds of antifa descended on the @PortlandPolice union building again in north Portland. They blocked the road, started street fires & tried to burn down the union hall again. Video from inside shows the arson attack #PortlandRiots https://t.co/WAvyCdYjVm pic.twitter.com/mpHi9fQAcr
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) August 9, 2020
Portland police spent the next two hours pushing the crowd back and by 2 a.m. reported that most rioters had left the area.
At a Friday evening news briefing in Bedminster, New Jersey, President Donald Trump called the situation in Portland “a disaster,” according to a White House transcript.
“The disgraced mayor of the city has ordered the police to stand down in the face of rioters, leaving his citizens at the mercy of this mob …
Do you think violence in Portland will get worse?
“Mayor Wheeler has abdicated his duty and surrendered his city to the mob. As a result, the mob descended upon a police precinct and tried to burn it down, tear it down, rip it down — an act of attempted murder. Left-wing, violent extremism poses an increasing threat to our country, and we stop it. You have no idea how much we stop, but it’s an ideology we have to stop,” Trump said.
The president said the violence in Portland is a symptom of something graver.
“What you’re seeing in Portland is the radical left’s agenda in action. Portland is their roadmap for America. If the radical left gets in — and they treat Joe Biden as a puppet; he’s merely a puppet. But if the radical left gets in, they look at Portland as a thing that they want. That’s what they want. Why? Who knows? Doesn’t matter. It’s a different thinking, but it’s a mess,” Trump said.
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