Veterans day in Portland Oregon

[Marsden 1st MRB]

http://katu.com/live/event

 

This is just a terrifying display of the state of things where I'm living.

 

Katu will most likely have clips of this after it's not live anymore.

 

Hopefully this dies down soon because the police flashbanged and teargassed before the crowd threw flashbangs back at the police after being under constant barrage of flashbangs for 2-3 minutes before anyone threw one back. This has crossed the line.

[Marsden 1st MRB]

So on review this incident was intended to keep things last night from getting out of hand as they had the night before last which I can understand the police perspective on. What I cannot understand is the insistence of the protestors to remain in the street itself and continue to impeded traffic. In the downtown area that all of this shit popped off on are multiple open park spaces that the protestors could have continued at without being impediments to trafffic. But instead they insist on a need to spill into the freeways and main streets in Portland.

 

So as I am a spoiled and sheltered American Millennial; I don't really know how to deal with this shit popping off literally within 10 miles of me. I believe in these peoples right to protest even if I don't agree with the non-point they are protesting, I agree with the police that the crowd at the very least needed to move from where they had been. I don't agree with the flash bangs and deployment of cs gas into a peaceful protest, I don't agree with the escalation in turn from the protesters throwing flash bangs back into the phalanx of officers as that is just asking for them to escalate the force further.

 

The line I mentioned above as having been crossed was crossed on both sides of this Veterans Day display. I am deaply shamed by the actions of both sides and the disrespect it shows for the sacrifices made by our service men. The protesters are miss-using their right to free speech and refusing to exercise it in a respectful manner. And the Police are trying to save face and show that they are serious, thus attempting to take away said freedom.

 

Sorry for ranting about something that even to the other Americans in the unit is a non-point as you are not in Oregon, but having grown up in peace loving communities like Santa Cruz California surrounded by dirty hippies [most say this with disdain, I say it with love] that execute their peaceful protests correctly and concede to direct instructions with threats of force for non-compliance, I have no way to understand how to conduct myself from here.

 

If there is anyone else with some familiarity of being on the outside of unrest that continues on a steady path of escalation and has some input as to how I can continue to have and voice my opinions without being at risk, I would welcome the wisdom.

[J. Hill]

From my perspective, the Police handled it correctly.  Once that group broke off from the main group, where they were allowed to stage their protest, they broke the law.  they impeded traffic and refused to leave the area.  The way I would handle it, is ask them to leave the area, move off the streets or return to the original area.  If they refused, I would use tear gas and flash bangs to try and drive them out.  If that did not work, I would use water cannons.  soak them down and they either freeze or go home to get dry clothes.  Next I would use rubber bullets and bean bags.  Cause them some pain.  IF they started destroying property or starting fires like they did on previous nights, I would open fire.  Their rights do not allow them to infringe on the rights of others.  They caused enough damage already.  no need to allow them to cause more.  Shoot a few and the rest will scatter. 

[Marsden 1st MRB]

I do agree that the protesters should have had some common sense and dispersed to where they had been instructed to go, that was their first failing as a stated peaceful protest.

[Armstrong 1st MRB]

I'm fairly close to Toronto and I was well enough aware when the G20 Protests happened several years ago and the massive fuck-up involved with how police handled the situation there.

 

To make a long story shorter, they basically allowed violent protesters to run up and down Bay Street and smash every storefront window in sight, burned a dozen cars and a couple cruisers, and basically caused chaos the whole day without much action by police. The very next day after that, the cops have a small army of riot cops go through and grab ANYONE who's on the streets within certain areas, corral them into intersections and surround them to leave them out there for hours all day until it starts raining where they finally let them go (arresting a bunch throughout the whole day as well, and tons of accounts of police using excessive force and brutally treating a bunch of people [one case I heard of a guy who was beaten up with his own false leg in front of his daughter because he wasn't moving fast enough, then arrested, then denied to be given his false leg until he was released because it could be used as a weapon], and bad conditions at the makeshift jail camps they had setup for the occasion.) And Toronto is not known for its protests getting out of hand, so I basically was relatively close to the worst case scenario of both sides.

 

IMO, and from my vague understanding of standard police procedures, the cops were within their rights to use non-lethal methods of persuasion in order to enforce compliance when the protesters refused to move. They do it all the time with small-scale, one-on-one encounters with people they suspect to have committed a crime. If the suspect is non-compliant in their orders, they will use whatever methods at their disposal to enforce compliance going up in caliber depending on how the suspect is behaving or acting (the simplest being restraining them with handcuffs tightly enough to cause physical pain, the highest of course being drawing their lethal firearm). If the suspect is compliant, they have no reason to use any of these methods.

 

Have cops abused their power in certain situations before? Yes. Have Protesters also blatantly refused to cooperate with police? Yes. 

 

I personally don't know enough about the situation to say which is more likely to have happened here with any certainty (Hill probably knows better than me on this, or others in the Unit who have been in law enforcement, like Hall used to be).

 

I will say though, I find it amusing that the places protesting this non-issue are all places that predominantly voted Hillary anyway, like anyone's supposed to be shocked that they're basically throwing the equivalent of hissy fits that places like Texas did after Obama got in (though I will say, Portland is the only case I've heard so far of the protests turning this violent and of one person getting shot and it wasn't by police-on-protesters apparently). 

 

I also find this terrible to have happened on Veteran's Day (Remembrance Day up here).

Edited November 13, 2016 by Armstrong 1st MRB

[J. Hill]

it got bad in California also.  at least 20 million in damage.  These are kids brainwashed by progressive Colleges, and agitated by progressive troublemakers.  Some of those punks want riots and don't care who gets hurt for it to happen.  Punk kids were so hurt their candidate lost, and they were not even old enough to vote, that they walked out of high schools, and the schools kissed their ass and felt sorry for them.  In my day if we had done that, we would have been suspended from school and received a failing grade on any tests or assignments we missed.  Kids are spoiled rotten today and its going to ruin our country.  When these sissy's grow up, who is going to work so they can have their free stuff?  get ready to work til you die Millennials, todays cry babies won't want to work for anything, but will want everything you have for free.  They may even riot and take it if you don't give it to them for free.