Several protest events unfolded in Portland on Monday night in opposition to police killings and the death of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man shot and killed Sunday by law enforcement in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.
According to NPR, the president of the Brooklyn Center police union, Kim Potter, was the officer who killed Wright.
Around 6 p.m. Monday, dozens of people gathered at Waterfront Park in Portland to hear speeches, where activists repeated long-standing calls for changes to American policing.
Speaker “we’re asking white people to sit with a little discomfort, to recognize their humanity is linked with the humanity of black people .” pic.twitter.com/nd7ImsXwQ4
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) April 13, 2021
“I don’t have anything to prove, but you do as white people,” activist Demetria Hester told the crowd. “As people standing up for Black lives, you have an obligation that you failed because he’s dead. Where’s all of the action?”
Later in the evening, around 200 protesters gathered at the Penumbra Kelly building in Southeast Portland, where they chanted Wright’s name.
Police are firing impact munitions, a protestor holds out an impact round he picked up from the floor pic.twitter.com/LqgCxag7dp
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) April 13, 2021
Some demonstrators started fires inside dumpsters, and police responded with impact munitions and rubber bullets to keep them away from the building. Protesters eventually broke several windows on the building and threw fireworks at police. Officers, in exchange, used flash bangs and other crowd control weapons on the group.
Around 10:15 p.m., Portland police declared the gathering an unlawful assembly. By 10:35 p.m., police officers had dispersed the crowd from the Penumbra Kelly building.
Police Bull rush protestors, pushing them to the ground and bear macing them pic.twitter.com/HQadK3VnsX
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) April 13, 2021
Portland police stated late Monday night that a smaller group of people vandalized police vehicles in a North Portland parking lot during the demonstration at the Penumbra Kelly building.
“Responding officers arrived to find that suspects cut through a chain-link fence to access a parking lot, then broke out windows, slashed tires, and broke windows of several police vehicles,” police wrote in a statement. “The suspects fled prior to police arrival.”
The police bureau did not report any arrests as of Tuesday morning.
