A4 EZ M2 THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, JULY 28 , 2020
how seriously officials are consid-
ering this, however.
Outside the current fence, it is
easy to see evidence that protest-
ers have adapted to the escalated
use of force.
Along the b ase of t he re inforced
iron fence, a line of shields —
homemade plywood rectangles
with handles made of rope drilled
through the center — sit, waiting
for their moment.
On some, black marker an-
nounces that they’re free for the
taking. A pile of plastic storage-
bin lids and barrel bottoms
wrapped with pool noodles — to
better repel batons and p rojectiles
— sits in the park across the street
from the courthouse.On Saturday, the largest crowd
Portland protests have seen since
the e arliest d ays of the demonstra-
tions that followed George Floyd’s
death gathered in the street,
chanting, shouting, dancing to
drumbeats and bouncing a beach
ball through the air. On the side of
the Multnomah County Justice
Center, which houses the county
jail, demonstrators projected the
words “Fed goons out of PDX,”
referring to the city by its airport
code.
Though many newcomers had
arrived carrying little more than a
sign and wearing a cloth face cov-
ering — because of the still-raging
coronavirus — the more-seasoned
in the crowd had amassed a small
arsenal of protective equipment:
helmets, kneepads, motorcycle ar-
mor, gas masks, respirators, a
snorkeling mask jury-rigged to
withstand tear gas.
At one point, some people i n the
crowd b egan to shoot f ireworks up
toward the broken windows o f the
federal courthouse. Federal
agents burst through the ply-
wood-reinforced doors of the
building and rushed forward to-
ward the fence line. They shot
“less-lethal” munitions through
dark squares cut into the boards.
Explosions burst into the night
as protesters fell into a familiar
choreography: Those without res-
pirators fell b ack a s tear g as cloud-
ed the air. Those who wore masks
able to withstand the barrage of
chemical agents ran forward,
many carrying shields to press up
against t he fence and block f ederal
officers from firing stun grenades,
pepper pellets, rubber bullets and
paintballs into the crowd.
Some began to shake the fence,
pushing it back and forth to the
beat of drums or chants. Others
lobbed water bottles and other
household objects — some of them
still crying and coughing from the
burn of the gas as they wound
their arms back to throw. Volun-
teer medics pulled retching,
coughing people to safety back
behind the tree line of the park,
where s omeone had s trung up half
a dozen box fans to repel the gas.
After a short break, with pro-
testers returning to passing a
beach ball and blowing bubbles
into the air, the pattern repeated.
About half a dozen people were
arrested i n downtown Portland on
Saturday after police declared a
riot and ordered those gathered t o
leave the area. About 18 others
were charged with federal offens-
es after being arrested near the
courthouse last week.
As people gathered on Sunday,
they joined in a chant led by a
demonstrator with a microphone
standing on the steps of the Jus-
tice Center.
“Portland, you scared?” he
called.
“Hell no,” the c rowd yelled back.
“I ain’t scared.”
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]Lang reported from Portland. Eva Ruth
Moravec in Austin; Rachel Lerman and
Greg Scruggs in Seattle; Natalie Jones
in Oakland, Calif.; Adam Raymond in
Louisville; and Jennifer Oldham in
Aurora contributed to this report.sudden escalation in force by
c amouflage-clad federal agents.
That may yet work as a cam-
paign tactic, i f it provides Trump a
way to sell himself as a law-and-
order candidate, the antidote to
chaos that developed on his own
watch.
But as a policing tactic, it has
failed to suppress the protests.
The escalation has been followed
by larger, better-equipped and
more-aggressive crowds, and — a s
the n ew r einforcements showed —
it exhausted federal resources be-
fore it exhausted the protesters.
“Every time we go out into this,
we get better at it,” said Gregory
McKelvey, 27, a community orga-
nizer in Portland. “When a flash
bang first goes off in front of you,
you r un. But when you r ealize that
one went off right in front of you
and nothing happened to you,
you’re less likely to run the next
time. It makes people band to-
gether and say, ‘ No, we’re not back-
ing down.’ ”
As the nightly street battles in
Portland have gotten more atten-
tion, they have triggered internal
investigations into the conduct of
federal agencies like the Marshals
Service and C BP. Some federal law
enforcement officials worry that
agents in Portland may be losing
control of the streets around the
federal courthouse and losing the
public debate over their handling
of the unrest, according to three
people familiar with the internal
conversations who were not au-
thorized to discuss them with re-
porters.
There is growing concern
among federal law enforcement
officials that some individuals in
the c rowds outside t he courthouse
have gotten more aggressive in
recent days, and that the number
of federal agents on site may not
be sufficient to handle them. Pro-
testers have injured federal agents
with large commercial-grade fire-
works while o thers a imed l asers at
their eyes, leading to several inju-
ries, DHS officials said.
Now officials and demonstra-
tors in other cities that have expe-
rienced ongoing protests against
police violence fear that federal
agents will bring the same tactics
to them.
In Seattle, protesters who saw
camouflage-clad officers standing
in their streets at a distance on
Sunday wondered if they were the
federal agents who were seen
snatching protesters off the
streets of Portland.
“We don’t e ven know who we’re
dealing with,” said one protester,
Madeline, who declined to give
their last name because they
feared police retribution.
T rump has s aid t hat federal offi-
cers have not been sent to Seattle.
Worried that this might change, a
Seattle group has c opied one strat-
egy used in Portland: organizing a
“Wall of Moms” to stand between
protesters and police. Christine
Edgar, one member of the Seattle
group, said that so far they have
had mixed results inserting them-
selves in between protesters and
Seattle police.
“A t several points, moms tried
to get between police and protest-
ers and were hurt doing that,”
Edgar said. “Because w e formed so
quickly, we didn’t have a clear
strategy on how to do that, but a
lot of brave moms linked arms and
did that whenever they could.”
In Aurora, Colo., Mayor Mike
Coffman (R) worried that his local
police were facing protesters who
had been radicalized by the clash-
es they had heard about in Port-
land. On Saturday, after a protest
over the 2019 death of 23-year-old
Elijah McClain in Aurora police
custody, someone broke windows
in the city’s municipal complex.
Coffman wrote on Twitter that
provocateurs u naffiliated w ith t he
main protest had “sought to bait
the police into a confrontation
and to destroy as much public
property as possible.”
“#Aurora cannot become #Port-
land,” Coffman wrote.
A protest in Austin turned fatal
on Saturday when a driver navi-
gated his vehicle toward the
marchers and fired at 28-year-old
protester Garrett Foster, who had
brought an assault rifle to a
march, police said.
The driver — fired upon by a
third armed man at the scene —
was not injured, officials said, and
police released him while their
investigation continued.
On Sunday evening, other pro-
testers remembered Foster, who
had b een a r egular at p ast marches
about police brutality. They said
his death would inspire others to
join the cause, chanting, “He
didn’t die, he multiplied!”
But some worry that the inci-
dent will lead to more guns at the
protests, i ncreasing the chances o f
violence. “It’s hard to see how
more weapons in a charged envi-
ronment will help keep things saf-
er when it seems to do more to
escalate situations,” said Jimmy
Flannigan, a member of the non-
PROTESTS FROM A
Federal escalation at Ore. protests has other cities on edge
MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/ASSOCIATED PRESSMICHAEL CIAGLO/GETTY IMAGES
TOP: A bloodied demonstrator
is escorted by federal agents
during a p rotest at the Mark O.
Hatfield U.S. Courthouse i n
Portland, Ore., on Monday.
ABOVE: A protester holds up
an upside-down flag Saturday
as people shut down Interstate
225 in Aurora, Colo., to protest
the death of Elijah McClain in
police custody. A car drove
through the protest further
along during the march and a
protester was also shot.
LEFT: Paramedics tend to a
protester in Aurora who
jumped off the side of the
highway to avoid a car speeding
through the crowd on Saturday.already worsened the unrest on
Portland’s s treets, and h e was con-
cerned that the president would
continue to escalate the tensions.
“I’m worried that Trump will
force things to get even more out
of hand and that will likely lead to
worse v iolence,” B lumenauer said.
“It doesn’t take much of a spark
when you’ve got these extremes.”
Federal officials have also dis-
cussed creating a s econd, stronger
fence around the courthouse that
would be more resistant to nightly
efforts to move or dismantle it,
and would form a more secure
area where protesters could not
bring gas masks, shields or weap-
ons, according to people familiar
with the discussions. It’s unclearwere calling for an “immediate
meeting” with DHS o fficials on the
ground in Portland and with act-
ing Homeland Security secretary
Chad Wolf “to discuss a cease-fire
and the removal of heightened
federal forces from Portland.”
DHS did not immediately re-
spond to a request for comment.
Local officials have accused the
Trump administration of making
the situation worse and have
called for the federal agents to
leave the c ity. C ongressional Dem-
ocrats also have criticized the ad-
ministration’s response, accusing
the president of using conflict as a
rallying point for his reelection.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.)
said the federal agents’ tactics hadpartisan Austin City Council, who
supports the protesters.
Portland has been the scene of
long-running protests over police
mistreatment of minorities, with
demonstrators’ anger increasing-
ly focused on a l arge federal court-
house downtown. Confrontations
between the heavily armed federal
agents and black-clad protesters
have intensified in recent weeks,
and Trump administration offi-
cials have pledged to defeat the
“violent anarchists” they say are
trying to burn down the building.
Portland Mayor Te d Wheeler
and city Commissioner Jo Ann
Hardesty, who has long been a
vocal critic of police use of force,
announced late Monday that theyMICHAEL CIAGLO/GETTY IMAGES