The Washington Post - USA (2020-07-27)

monday, july 27 , 2020. the washington post ez SU A

Politics & the Nation

BY GREGORY SCRUGGS

AND CHRISTIAN DAVENPORT

SEATTLE — Protests in several
major cities across the country
turned violent this weekend, as
weeks of civil unrest and clashes
between activists and authorities
boiled over, sending thousands of
people teeming into public
squares demanding racial j ustice.
From Los Angeles t o Richmond
to Omaha, police and protesters
clashed in a tumultuous Saturday
night that saw scores arrested af-
ter demonstrators took to the
streets and police in some cities
dispersed crowds with tear gas
and p epper spray.
In Austin, a man was shot and
killed in the midst of a downtown
rally. I n Richmond, a truck was s et
ablaze outside police headquar-
ters. Outside of Denver, a Jeep
sped through a phalanx of people
marching down an interstate
when a shot was fired, injuring a
protester, police said.
The focal point of the protests
continued to be in the Pacific
Northwest, where a w eek of clash-
es between activists and federal
agents in Portland, Ore., pumped
new energy into a movement that
began in the wake of the police
killing of George Floyd in Minne-
apolis on Memorial Day.
In Portland, authorities de-
clared a riot after protesters
breached a fence surrounding the
city’s federal courthouse building.
The “violent conduct of people
downtown” created a “grave risk
of public alarm,” the Portland po-
lice wrote on Twitter.
Early Sunday, federal agents
and local police demanded that
protesters leave the area and used
tear gas. But the activists stood
their ground, blocking intersec-
tions. S everal were a rrested.
A Marriott hotel in downtown
Portland was shut down Sunday
morning, and guests were asked to
leave after hundreds of protesters
demonstrated outside Saturday
night because it was believed that
federal agents were staying there.
The crowd waved signs with mes-
sages s uch as “No more b rutality!”
as people stood on the riverside
parkway outside the hotel and
chanted: “Kick them out, Mar-
riott!” A manager at the hotel said
the building had sustained some
“minor damage” following the
demonstration, including graffiti
on exterior w alls.
In Seattle, police declared a riot
on Saturday and used pepper
spray and flash grenades in an
attempt to disperse a crowd of
roughly 2,000 people in the Capi-
tol Hill n eighborhood marching in
the city’s largest Black Lives Mat-
ter p rotest in more than a m onth.
Nightly protests since Floyd’s
killing had dwindled in recent
weeks in Seattle. But they were

reinvigorated i n the w ake of f eder-

al action in the Portland protests

and after Washington Gov. Jay In-

slee (D) tweeted that President

Trump had sent federal law en-

forcement agents to the city.

“For a month, the President

threatened to send federal forces

to ‘clean up’ Seattle.... The Presi-

dent has made g ood on his t hreats

in Portland, and c ontinues to exac-

erbate the s ituation on the

ground, endanger communities,

and jeopardize the work of local

officials,” Seattle Mayor Jenny

Durkan (D) said Wednesday in a

statement. “The President unilat-

erally deploying paramilitary-

type forces into American cities

should concern all Americans. H is

blatant disregard for the constitu-

tion — and for the safety and well-

being of our residents — is text-

book despotism.”

Portland Mayor Te d Wheeler

(D), who was t ear-gassed last week

as he joined protesters, has de-

scribed the agents as an “occupy-

ing force.”

But o n Sunday, Mark Meadows,

the White House chief of staff,

defended the presence of federal

agents there.

The courthouse “has not only

been vandalized, but they’re try-

ing to burn it down,” he said on

ABC’s “ This Week.” “We can’t have

this in American cities.... You’ve

got people there and fencing

there, but they’re throwing molo-

tov c ocktails and d oing all kinds o f

rioting.”

Police in Richmond tweeted a

photo of rocks and batteries they

said had been thrown at them,

triggering them t o declare the pro-

test outside o f police headquarters

an unlawful a ssembly.

In Aurora, Colo., just outside of

Denver, protesters were also

marching i n response to the d eath

last summer of Elijah McClain, a

23-year-old who died after being

put in a chokehold by police. On

Saturday, police said in a tweet

that “while the majority of the

protestors were peaceful, a group

decided to hijack the message to-

night & c ause m ajor damage to the

courthouse & courtyard.”

The protesters marched down

Interstate 225, cutting off traffic.

But a Jeep sped through the

crowd, sending protesters run-

ning f or s afety.

“A p rotestor d ecided to fire off a

weapon, striking at least 1 other

protestor,” police said on Twitter.

That person was in stable condi-

tion at a h ospital.

On Austin’s Congress Avenue,

normally a site for music venues

and b ars, p olice were m onitoring a

crowd of protesters Saturday

night w hen S enior Officer Katrina

Ratcliff said shots were fired, kill-

ing a man. A suspect w as detained,

she said, “and is cooperating with

officers.”

On Sunday, Austin Police Chief

Brian Manley identified the v ictim

as Garrett Foster, 28, according to

the A ssociated Press.

Manley said o fficers heard “ two

separate volleys of gunfire” and

made their way to the crowd,

where they found Foster suffering

from multiple gunshot wounds.

He was taken to the hospital,

where he was later pronounced

dead, the A P reported.

“Someone dying while protest-

ing is horrible,” Austin Mayor

Steve Adler (D) said in a state-

ment. “ Our city is shaken and, like

so many in our community, I’m

heartbroken and stunned.”

Protesters in Omaha marched

to bring attention to the killing of

James Scurlock, a black man shot

by a white bar owner. Police came

out in force Saturday night and

detained more than 7 5 people who

were marching downtown, ob-

structing t raffic, a ccording to local

news reports. Although there was

no major damage, Police Capt.

Mark Matuza told the Omaha

World-Herald that the gathering

“leaned toward the potential of

getting violent.”

In L os Angeles, p olice fired pro-

jectiles at a ctivists p rotesting near

a federal courthouse.

Seattle’s riot declaration came

after protesters set fire to a con-

struction site for a juvenile deten-

tion facility and as the police de-

partment reported that one per-

son had breached the fencing sur-

rounding the East Precinct, the

site of nightly clashes in June that

led t o a nearly month-long protest

occupation, and officers saw

smoke i n the l obby.

Police said protesters were

throwing rocks, bottles and fire-

works at the officers. As of

7:30 p.m. local time Saturday, the

department had reported 25 ar-

rests and three police injuries, in-

cluding an officer hospitalized

with a leg injury caused by an

explosive. T he department posted

a p hoto of u nused fireworks found

at t he s cene to its Twitter feed.

Protesters erected barricades

and fended off police efforts to

disperse them with homemade

shields, umbrellas and leaf blow-

ers, tactics borrowed from pro-

tests in Portland, where activists

have clashed nightly with police

for nearly two months.

Early Saturday, a U.S. district

judge issued a temporary restrain-

ing order against a Seattle City

Council ordinance banning

crowd-control devices such as

pepper spray, rubber bullets, flash

grenades and blast balls.

On Thursday, Police Chief Car-

men Best warned that without

such tools, the police department

could not protect property. Dur-

ing demonstrations on July 19 and

Wednesday, protesters smashed

windows and looted businesses

perceived to be supportive of the

police department. The depart-

ment said that at least 12 officers

were injured by protesters during

those clashes.

Protesters gathered in the early

afternoon on Saturday, holding

signs declaring “We Stand With

Portland F eds Out!” and “ The Feds

Don’t Scare Us.” Medics handed

out earplugs to prevent hearing

damage from flash grenades and

vials of saline solution to dilute

pepper spray a nd tear gas.

Before the march, organizer

Jaiden Grayson stood on a brick

wall with a megaphone and in-

structed the crowd o n tactics such

as “de-arresting,” b y which groups

of protesters block efforts by law

enforcement to arrest individuals.

“When you see something, I

need you to do more than say

something,” Grayson told the

crowd. “I need you to swarm.”

Christine Edgar said that when

the yellow-clad “Wall of Moms”

emerged at Portland’s Black Lives

Matter protests last week, she de-

cided that Seattle mothers needed

to adopt t he tactic as well.

“I wanted to make sure that

black and brown voices were rep-

resented among the moms,” Ed-

gar, who said her daughter was at

the protest, told The Washington

Post before addressing the crowd

with a megaphone. “When people

hear ‘mom,’ they always think of

white moms,” she s aid, “ and black,

brown and indigenous women

have been on the f orefront of liber-

ation movements for c enturies.”

By midafternoon, the crowd,

flanked by bicycles and v ehicles a s

a security measure, had marched

several blocks to the construction

site for the King County Children

and Family Justice Center, a juve-

nile detention facility and court-

house, where dozens of people

toppled fences and set fire to five

construction trailers. The blazes

appeared to have destroyed the

trailers and sent large plumes of

smoke into the air before the fire

department arrived.

King County Executive Dow

Constantine announced Friday

that t he f acility, commonly known

as the “youth jail,” would close by

2025 in line with the county’s goal

of zero youth detentions. The fa-

cility has been the subject of pro-

tests for y ears by groups calling for

an end to youth incarceration.

Shortly after t he fire, p rotesters

smashed the windows of a Star-

bucks, which has become a target

for its donations to the Seattle

Police Foundation.

The fire and subsequent clash-

es outside a police department

precinct resulted in the police de-

claring the protest a “riot” and

attempting to disperse the crowd

with munitions such as pepper

spray, blast balls and rubber bul-

lets. The protesters came pre-

pared, w ith many wearing protec-

tive g ear.

“A fter seeing what happened in

Portland, I feel it is important to

put my body on the line,” Megan

Barry said before the march be-

gan. Barry, a marketing profes-

sional from Gig Harbor, 22 miles

southwest of Seattle, was attend-

ing her first protest since mid-

June. On May 30, she said, she was

hit with tear gas when police tried

to disperse the first large demon-

stration in downtown Seattle after

Floyd’s killing. On Saturday, she

was arrested for “failure to dis-

perse,” when she claims she was

moving backward from the police

line a fter having been tagged w ith

blue ultraviolet dye. She was re-

leased a round midnight.

“I have the luxury of going

home and acting like nothing is

going on,” she said. “I want to hold

myself accountable.”

[email protected]

davenport reported from Washington.

Marissa J. Lang in Portland, ore.,

contributed to this report.

Police, protesters clash in demonstrations across the U.S.

MArcio JoSe SAnchez/ASSociAted PreSS

Federal officers fire tear gas Sunday at protesters at the U.S. courthouse in Portland, Ore. Authorities

declared a riot after a fence was breached in ongoing clashes over the deployment of federal agents.

As Portland crackdown

gives movement new life,

violence hits other cities

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