Wheeler: I'm turning the cops loose
Portland's mayor, F. Ted Wheeler, held a press conference this afternoon in which he deplored last night's vandalism and property destruction outside the police East Precinct. He also tried to make it sound like attempted murder of people inside the building, which is a bit of a stretch. But he was correct in saying that the stuff that went on was pointless and dangerous.
Representatives of the police bureau and other police agencies were also in on the Zoom meeting.
Wheeler asked peaceful protesters to stay away from the demonstrations, or to say something to stop people in the crowd from busting up public property for the fun of it. He also said that he was authorizing the Portland police to "do whatever is necessary" to stop the destruction and "safely" arrest the people breaking the law. The mayor also made the interesting point that the demonstrators are being used as props in the President's re-election campaign.
And so it appears that the battles between the police and the protesters are going to get even uglier than they have been. You know those "disturbing image" warnings they give you on the TV news? This is that.
I tell you what...during this 2 months of video clips I've seen stabbings, shootings, beatings with batons and fists, and direct hits with rubber bullets, but that clip last night with the woman facing off with a half dozen protesters was the ugliest thing I've seen in Portland since the Jeremy Christian stabbings on MAX. That looked like a scene from WW2 when Paris was liberated and women who sided with the Nazis were set upon and had their hair cut off. It's that frenzied mob thing, where the mob believes they get to decide someone's fate. In other times the symbol that set the mob off would have been the Star of David - it looked like a pogram in Russia. It looked like a scene from the race riots in Tulsa. It was that ugly. Now, I've kept my spirits fairly protected during all this but that clip last night got me. It was hauntingly ugly and it's definitely changed how I feel about Portland. How can we justify a half dozen guys threatening a single woman in her own doorway while trying to hurt her eyes with lasers? Don't believe me. See for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-H1Yxsm3jc
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