Sunday, July 1, 2018

Portland "riot"

Our civil war to come may be between white supremacists and antifacists. On the other hand, we could have several separate groups lossely banding together to fight other similarly banded groups. Kind of like the Middle East.
More than 150 supporters of the far-right Patriot Prayer group fought pitched street battles with scores of anti-fascist protesters. In total, nine people were arrested.

The far-right march had started near Schrunk Plaza in the city centre, where the rightwing group had held a rally, led by the Patriot Prayer founder and Republican US Senate candidate Joey Gibson.

As soon as the group left the plaza, they clashed with anti-fascists who had been waiting across a heavily barricaded street nearby.

As the two groups came to blows, Department of Homeland Security officers fired non-lethal ammunition towards the counter-protest.

Later the groups met on another street nearby, where the worst of the violence took place.

Patriot Prayer supporters – many of whom wore the colours of a rightwing fraternity called Proud Boys – were seen hitting counter-protesters with flagpoles, trash can lids, and their fists.

  The Guardian
Proud Boys. Kind of interesting that they'd use the term for themselves - boys - that for centuries they used to denegrate blacks.
While anti-fascists used pepper spray, Patriot Prayer members had been unable to take theirs into a federal park. The melee lasted several minutes before Portland police revoked the permit for the march and cleared the street. The groups clashed again soon after and police used pepper spray to separate them and declared a riot at 6.15pm local time.

People in both groups suffered head and facial wounds in the fighting.

[...]

Regular Patriot Prayer rally attendee Katherine Townsend told the group that Portland police had “set us up”, and accused them of “disarming us and herding us towards antifa”.
Nobody likes the police in a riot.

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