Police on Saturday arrested at least 13 people and seized metal poles, bear spray and other weapons as hundreds of right-wing protesters and counter-demonstrators swarmed downtown Portland, Oregon.
Authorities closed bridges and streets to try to keep the rival groups apart. They were largely successful.
“This was a dynamic event with demonstrators frequently moving from one part of the city to another,” Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said at an evening news conference.
Photo: AP
As of early afternoon, most of the right-wing groups had left the area via a downtown bridge.
Police used officers on bikes and in riot gear to keep black-clad, helmet and mask-wearing counter-protesters — known as “antifa” — from following them.
However, hundreds of people remained downtown and on nearby streets, and there were skirmishes throughout the day.
Police declared a gathering of mostly left-wing protesters near Pioneer Courthouse Square a “civil disturbance” and told people to leave.
Police spokeswoman Lieutenant Tina Jones at one point said that there were about 1,200 people on the streets, but that number fell throughout the day.
Six people suffered minor injuries.
The events began late in the morning. Flag-waving members of the Proud Boys, Three Percenters militia group and others gathered downtown, some also wearing body armor and helmets.
Police said they had seized the weapons, including shields, from multiple groups as they assembled along 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.
Portland Police said all of the city’s 1,000 officers would be on duty for the gathering that was hyped on social media and elsewhere for weeks.
US President Donald Trump weighed in early on Saturday, writing on Twitter that “Portland is being watched very closely ... Hopefully the Mayor will be able to properly do his job.”
He also wrote that “major consideration is being given to naming ANTIFA an ‘ORGANIZATION of TERROR.’”
However, it was not immediately clear what he meant by that, as there is no mechanism for the US government to declare a domestic organization a terror group.
Wheeler responded in an interview with CNN, saying: “Frankly, it’s not helpful.”
At the evening news conference Wheeler tied the demonstrations to “a rising white nationalist movement.”
“We’re certainly seeing that play out... Portland being a very progressive community is always going to be at or near ground zero of this battle,” Wheeler said.
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