Police Seize Weapons From Portland Protesters
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While they found no guns, police seized metal poles, bear spray, and other weapons Saturday as hundreds of far-right protesters and anti-fascist counter-demonstrators swarmed downtown Portland, Oregon, in a situation the mayor termed “potentially dangerous and volatile.”
Portland authorities also set up concrete barriers and closed streets and bridges in an effort to contain and separate the rival groups. Flag-waving members of the Proud Boys and Three Percenters militia group began gathering late in the morning, some wearing body armor and helmets.
Meanwhile black clad, helmet, and mask-wearing anti-fascist protesters—known as antifa—were also among the several hundred people on the streets. Police said they had seized the weapons, including shields, from multiple groups that were gathering on both sides of the Willamette River, which runs through the city.
More than two dozen local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, were in the city for the right-wing rally that was expected to draw people from across the country. Police said over a loudspeaker that people on the streets for the unpermitted rallies could be arrested. At least one person was arrested.
The gathering was hyped on social media and elsewhere for weeks. In the days leading up the event Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said people who espoused hate or engaged in violence were “not welcome.”
In a Saturday tweet, President Donald Trump wrote “Portland is being watched very closely,” adding that antifa might be designated an “ORGANIZATION OF TERROR”—although there’s no mechanism for the US government to declare a domestic organization a terror group.
Edited from Newser.
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With what used to be the Department of Justice now serving as his personal defense department his own news network rolling out alternate reality we’re more like South America every day. Maybe he’ll offer to buy Guatemala. .
Trump doesn’t care if there’s no mechanism, no legal option or path. He doesn’t care if they are or are not looking only to make trouble. He welcomes trouble because he can then blame it on his enemies or his other chosen targets. Trump cares only for himself and his ratings. His will be done.
You are exactly right, and what’s even more troubling is that it’s a strategy that works.