PORTLAND TRASHED
Fire set in HQ of police union
Cops in Portland declared another riot there Saturday night after a group of protesters broke into a police-union building and started a fire, authorities said.
The protesters were trying to make the blaze inside the Portland Police Association building even bigger when officers declared the riot at around 11:30 p.m and tried to disperse the crowd with flash bangs and smoke canisters, according to police.
“Officers moved in so the fire could be extinguished before it could grow out of control,” police wrote on Twitter, along with footage of flaming wood inside the building.
Protesters then set fire to a barricade to stop police from advancing and threw objects at the officers as they tried to move the crowd from the building, which houses a labor union that represents members of the Portland Police Bureau, Oregon Live reported.
Three officers were hurt, including two who received treatment at a hospital, during efforts to clear out the several hundred demonstrators, police said.
The protesters were ultimately forced several blocks away to Kenton Park, where they were again ordered to disperse.
The clash came a few days after rioters set fire to a police station while blocking exits — prompting Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler to call the violence an act of “attempted murder.”
“When you commit arson with an accelerant in an attempt to burn down a building that is occupied by people who you have intentionally trapped inside, you are not demonstrating, you are attempting to commit murder,” Wheeler fumed during a press conference Thursday.
“I believe that city staff could have died last night. I cannot and I will not tolerate that.”
Hours later, protesters set another fire outside the police precinct station house and tried to break into it, prompting cops to declare another riot.
Protests have been held almost day in Portland since the cop involved killing in late May of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Recent demonstrations have been smaller than the ones that occurred for about two weeks in July to protest the presence of federal agents deployed to protect court buildings.
President Trump has accused Wheeler of allowing “anarchists” and “mobs” to run rampant through the city after federal agents stopped policing the demonstrations.
Wheeler hasn’t responded to Trump’s accusations but has claimed the demonstrations serve as political “props” for the president’s reelection.