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Thread: Hands-off police strategy during violent Portland clashes. . . . . . .

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    Hands-off police strategy during violent Portland clashes. . . . . . .

    Hands-off police strategy during violent Portland clashes confounds critics, wins praise from mayor

    The decision by Portland police to hold fast to a hands-off approach to political skirmishes that ended Sunday with gunfire drew widespread criticism as the city continues to struggle with its response to unrest.

    Both far-right and far-left camps faced off with paintball guns, bats and chemical spray as they have in the past and proceeded to clash in a roving brawl in outer Northeast Portland despite advance exhortations by police and city leaders to remain peaceful.

    Several hours later, police intervened for the first time after an apparent exchange of gunshots in downtown not far from an electronic road sign that declared, "Hate Has No Place Here."

    Police arrested a man seen on video pointing his gun and firing. They said Monday they found evidence that someone else also had fired at the scene but have made no other arrests. Remarkably, no one was hurt.

    The Police Bureau had halted days off for all officers in anticipation of possible violence Sunday but police supervisors directed them to observe the fights from afar even as motorists and pedestrians tried to avoid the fray.

    Mayor Ted Wheeler called that the right strategy.

    Wheeler said he believed the announcements he made as well as those from the police chief and other officials decrying hate and saying police wouldn't get between opposing factions spurred the Proud Boys and their supporters to move their event out of Tom McCall Waterfront Park to a location east of Interstate 205.

    Wheeler said the fights largely stayed among opponents.

    "With strategic planning and oversight, the Portland Police Bureau and I mitigated confrontation between the two events and minimized the impact of the weekend's events to Portlanders," he said in a statement.

    "In the past, these same groups have clashed with extremely violent and destructive results. This time, violence was contained to the groups of people who chose to engage in violence toward each other," he said. "The community at large was not harmed and the broader public was protected. Property damage was minimal.''

    Reaction from commenters on social media and among community activists appeared to reflect ideology, saying police either allowed the Proud Boys or anarchists to provoke the fighting.

    Others were shocked that police allowed hand-to-hand combat and a paintball shootout along a busy city avenue without any police intervention. Many were tired and disgusted by the continued violence between two groups that appear intent on duking it out in public.

    "I am heartbroken and frustrated with the violence and destruction brought into the Parkrose Community and onto our High school grounds," Parkrose High School Principal Molly Ouche wrote on Twitter.

    "Counter protestors going to confront Proud Boys are NOT making things more safe, they're actually making it worse," Lakayana Drury wrote on Twitter. Drury is a member of the Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing, a group formed to oversee city compliance with a federal settlement on police use of force.

    Brawlers fired paintball guns at each other and right-wing demonstrators smashed out windows of antifa activists' trucks and vans on school property.

    "Your city terrifies me," wrote Tanny Martin, an out-of-town observer from Austin, Texas, on Twitter under her moniker "I expect Justice" during the violence. "These aren't protests, they are planned violence. And your leaders just let them keep doing it, the police tacitly support it. Horrific."

    Some said they believe the lack of visible police presence emboldened the man to brazenly fire his loaded handgun across downtown's Southwest Third Avenue later in the day.

    Amy Herzfled-Copple, deputy director of programs and strategic initiatives at the Western States Center, and colleague Stephen Piggott, a center program analyst, called for a better and broader plan. The center is a Portland-based organization that monitors right-wing extremism.

    "When there isn't rule of law, when law enforcement doesn't intervene to protect public safety, it only reinforces the lawlessness and fear that anti-democratic groups thrive on," Herzfeld-Copple told The Oregonian/OregonLive.


    Read full article here:
    Hands-off police strategy during violent Portland clashes confounds critics, wins praise from mayor - oregonlive.com

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