More arson, more police brutality at Portland protests
When they got to the county building, the protesters spray-painted the place up with their usual slogans, lit several dumpster fires, broke some windows on the ground floor, and finally threw some large flaming material through a broken window into someone's office.
— Liz Jones (@LizJone26271417) August 19, 2020
This activated the sprinklers, which eventually put the indoor fires out.
But not before the Portland police showed up and did their usual, largely pointless, "bull rush" routine a couple of times. They didn't seem at all interested in arresting the arsonists; it was more about knocking protesters around.
Hey @PortlandPolice is officer 37 going to be fired from his job? Or is this not enough evidence for you? #PortlandProtesters pic.twitter.com/eyhoMDk58d
— Ivy_PDX (@Ivy_PDX) August 19, 2020
There were several other instances of this kind of conduct by the cops. It's all just a game for them, from all appearances.
What a waste of everyone's time. Nobody wound up in the hospital this round, at least. But tune in again tomorrow, you never know.
UPDATE, later that morning: I just noticed that the fundraiser for the guy who was beaten unconscious on Sunday night just passed $100,000. They were looking for a lot less than that originally.
Last night I focused on the basketball game but at one point I flipped over to the convention for literally a few seconds and saw Joe Biden introducing himself as "Joe Biden's husband." Later on the news Bill Clinton had a good line about how the White House should be a command center in times like these - not a storm center. I guess the plan is to turn it into a center for the study of cognitive decline. In a way, a Biden presidency would lead to a much safer world. For example, we couldn't start a nuclear war because Joe's going to forget where he put the button. But it did get me thinking about Portland's leadership and what kind of "center" we have this summer. Folks, there is none. All I'm detecting is a void. There doesn't seem to be any kind of real leadership going on. Oh sure, we have a mayor and a district attorney but their main function in life seems to be picking up a paycheck. It's become a symbolic thing like the Queen of England. The district attorney came out after the kicking incident and said, "Assaults will not be tolerated in this community" - who's he kidding? He added that, "Assaults on community members and police officers undermine everything our community is doing to bring meaningful and lasting change to the criminal justice system and beyond." Everything our community is doing? I'm just surprised he can say some of these things with a straight face. At least get a few people in a room with laptops and call it the Center of Something. It'd be a start. Here in the real world, Standard Insurance has left its big building downtown. One of the reasons they gave was that some of their employees have been assaulted on the streets outside. We see assaults in Portland going unanswered basically every night. Meanwhile, I don't get the feeling Mayor Wheeler is even here in town. The district attorney? I'm surprised he hasn't dropped the charges against the kicker downtown saying it was freedom of expression by the man's foot. Joe Biden and his husband both exude more of a grip on reality than our civic leaders. The only great leadership Portland is seeing this summer is from Damian Lillard.
ReplyDeleteBusinesses and residents are leaving the big cities in droves. Covid added urgency to the exodus, but the riots (and the political reaction to them) cemented it. Expect widespread municipal bankruptcies as financially irresponsible cities begin to fail. https://nypost.com/2020/08/17/nyc-is-dead-forever-heres-why-james-altucher/
Delete