Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty lodged a sharp critique of the police response to last week’s climate demonstrations, questioning why officers had targeted two black protesters in a crowd of student activists.
In a post on her official Facebook profile, Hardesty said officers had "unnecessarily escalated a situation by pushing through a crowd of youth to single out two youth of color."
Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty listens to testimony over a proposed ordinance on April 4, 2019.
Kaylee Domzalski / OPB
Hardesty appeared to have seen the now viral videos from Friday's student climate protests in downtown Portland, which showed officers forcefully seizing two black teenagers standing on the guardrails that divide traffic on the Hawthorne Bridge.
“Every encounter with the public is an opportunity to build community trust, yet this is how these officers chose to interact with children peacefully engaging in direct action,” Hardesty wrote. “It’s disappointing that of the many ways this interaction could have happened, this is what ultimately transpired.”
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One video shows two officers approaching a group of teens surrounding the railing and demanding two black teenagers get down. The officers forcefully pull the two protesters down from the rail, but the teens slip away and sink back into the crowd.
In a later clip, filmed off the bridge, officers push through another throng of students, in what appears to be an attempt to arrest the two teenagers from earlier. The young, mostly white crowd attempts to form a barrier around the teens.
After the arrests, the Portland Police Bureau quickly tried to provide context to footage circulating on social media.
In a statement, PPB said officers had made “numerous requests, orders, and warnings” to one marcher, who was leaning into the inside lane on the Hawthorne Bridge, where cars were speeding past. To avoid hitting the protester, drivers were being forced to slam on their brakes.
“Officers were concerned about the extremely unsafe circumstance and saw arrest as the only option,” PPB said.
After protesters pulled the person away from the officers, police followed him to “a safer location,” where they arrested him, according to PPB. The statement mentions only one of the two teens that officers pulled down from the railings.
The Bureau attempted to provide additional insight into officers' actions Tuesday, noting in a release that the crowd size was far greater than the original 3,000-5,000 people organizers had estimated, and the majority of those protesting were “juveniles with very little supervision from adults.”
Hardesty was not alone in her critique of the officers’ conduct. Local political candidates have chimed in on social media with mayoral candidate Sarah Iannarone calling the Portland Police Bureau “out of control” on Twitter. City Council candidate Candace Avalos wrote that she couldn’t contemplate any scenario that would necessitate the response.
Nkenge Harmon Johnson, president of the Urban League of Portland, told the Willamette Week, that she found the conduct "shocking" and the use of force unwarranted.
