The Battle Of Portland

Robert Evans has worked as a conflict journalist in Iraq and Ukraine and reported extensively on far-right extremist groups in the United States.

I have been in the streets of Portland documenting this movement since the very first riot. Before the national press unleashes a flood of new stories based on their first few hours in town, I’d like to explain what’s been happening:

State and Federal law enforcement are at war with the people of Portland.

On July 20, Evans posted what must be the definitive account to date of what has been going on in Portland. offering a sober view of events; he has also uploaded numerous videos. With Donald Trump vowing to dispatch federal troops into other US cities to control and assault protesters, it is essential reading [any bolding below is my emphasis].

The city of Portland, Oregon is currently in the national spotlight after video evidence of federal agents driving rented vans and abducting activists went viral. This footage was taken in the early morning hours of July 15, and an Oregon Public Broadcasting article published on the 16th brought the matter out of the local social networks of Portland activists and on to the national stage.

As I write this, mainstream media personalities are beginning to parachute into Portland to cover what some have dubbed the "fascist takeover of Portland". The word "Gestapo" is trending on Twitter.

The abduction filmed on the 15th did not happen in a vacuum. As other local reporters have noted, it was the end result of more than six weeks of escalating state violence against largely nonviolent demonstrators.

Evans details an early split within Portland's protest movement, between "more moderate liberal marchers, who sought to avoid conflict with the police while engaging in 'peaceful protest'" and "more radical demonstrators", who have sought confrontation.

June 2 became known as "Tear Gas Tuesday" after police assaulted protesters with "an indiscriminate barrage of grenades, kettling the crowd on all sides with walls of tear gas".

By the end of the month, however, the city's "protest culture [had] settled into an odd rhythm. There were nightly gatherings at the Justice Center, which sometimes ended in police violence and sometimes ended in parties."

Portland Police have targeted and harassed journalists. Evans details the arrests of three reporters (Cory Elia, Lesley McLam and Justin Yau) and notes "most of the Portland press corps, including myself, are actively suing the Portland Police Bureau".

On the night of July 4, the 39th consecutive night of protests, more than one thousand people assembled in front of the Justice Center and Federal Courthouse. They began launching dozens of commercial-grade fireworks into the concrete facades of both buildings, prompting a response from the police and federal agents inside both buildings.

What followed resembled nothing so much as a medieval siege. The windows of both government buildings had been covered in plywood weeks ago, after the first riots. Officers inside fired out through murder holes cut in the plywood, pumping rubber bullets, pepper balls and foam rounds into the crowd, while the crowd formed phalanxes of shield-bearers to protect the men and women launching fireworks back in response. Federal agents dumped tear gas into the street, but Portland's frontline activists had long since lost their fear of gas. The feds and the police were eventually forced to sally out with batons to drive the crowd back.



I reported on the fighting in Mosul back in 2017, and what happened that night in the streets of Portland was, of course, not nearly as brutal or dangerous as actual combat. Yet it was about as close as you can get without using live ammunition. At times, dozens of flash-bangs and fireworks would detonate within feet of us over the course of a few minutes. My ears rang for days afterwards. My hands shook. I could not write for days.



The whole situation prompted the first major federal response to Portland's nightly protests. It started in the media, with CBP commissioner Mark Morgan going on Fox News to denounce local activists as "criminals." ...

[Morgan has referred to various items allegedly thrown at police by protesters (including 85% of a Granny Smith apple)] as deadly. However, so far, the only person who came close to dying as a result of these demonstrations is Donovan LaBella. On Saturday, July 11th, LaBella attended one of the nightly rallies in front of the Justice Center. People who were in attendance at the time described the general mood as subdued, and the crowd as passive, when Federal Agents with the U.S. Marshals began charging out to arrest and shoot protesters.

In the video below, Donovan can be seen holding a set of speakers above his head. Federal agents fire a munition towards him, and he gently tosses it away. He does not throw the munition towards officers, merely away from himself. After this, a federal agent shoots him directly in his skull with a rubber bullet. Donovan collapses instantly, his skull shattered.

The officers have a shot someone in the head with what appears to be an impact munition, there is a lot of blood. #blacklivesmatter #pdx #portlandoregon #oregon #blm #acab #portland #justicecenter pic.twitter.com/8JmR3QA0AN

— Garrison Davis (Teargas Proof) (@hungrybowtie) July 12, 2020

... On July 18th, the New York Times reported on a leaked DHS memo which warned that the agents deployed to Portland had no training in riot control or managing protests.

On July 10th, one day before Donovan was shot, President Donald Trump had congratulated the head of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, for crushing the protest movement in Portland. At a meeting of military commanders in Doral, Florida, he praised Wolf by stating: "It was out of control. The locals couldn't handle it, and you people are handling it very nicely — so nicely that the press doesn't want to write about it."

The protests and riots have, of course, continued.

[T]he Trump Administration has turned up the heat on their rhetoric. Acting secretary Wolf visited Portland on the 16th. He called protesters "lawless anarchists." In a statement issued the same day, he wrote that:

A federal courthouse is a symbol of justice — to attack it is to attack America. Instead of addressing violent criminals in their communities, local and state leaders are instead focusing on placing blame on law enforcement and requesting fewer officers in their community. This failed response has only emboldened the violent mob as it escalates violence day after day.

This is untrue. Virtually all crime, including violent crime, has been lower in the city of Portland during the last several weeks. The Acting Secretary's statement was filled with a number of other inaccuracies as well. ...

[T]he only escalation seen recently has been the federal agents now roaming the streets of downtown Portland in rented vans, arresting activists seemingly at random. These men display no identification, no name tag or badge number or anything else that might be useful identifying them. That fact has rightly shocked Americans across the country, but at this point, it is nothing new to Portland protesters.

Portland Police have been hiding their names for weeks, instead using numbers that cannot be correlated to names by any means available to citizens. Members of multiple different law enforcement agencies, all with different rules of engagement from the PPB, have been policing demonstrations since the very beginning. As Tuck Woodstock, a local reporter, noted on Twitter:

This is the natural escalation of the last 7 weeks. This is what has come of Portlanders protesting police brutality for 50 days: more bizarre acts of police brutality. Portlanders are risking everything every day. Please notice.

That is, in the end, what both the Portland press corps and the people out in the streets, protesting every night, seem to want from the rest of the United States. Please pay attention to the videos of officers ripping people's face masks off to spray mace directly into their mouths. Please pay attention to the video of Donovan LaBella, blood gushing from his head, seizing on the ground. And, yes, please pay attention to the videos of men in full combat gear abducting activists off the street.

Pay attention, because it is my belief that all of this will not stay confined to Portland. Your city might be next.