Protesters, who have for months demanded steep cuts to the police in demonstrations that frequently turned violent, arrived at a dark house and lit flares at the start of the mayhem, the Oregonian reported.
Mayor Ted Wheeler denounced the damage on Thursday, and Friday his support of Ryan was joined by a newly elected member of the City Council, along with a dozen other Black community leaders
Incoming commissioner Mingus Mapps held a video conference with the other leaders denouncing the “campaign of intimidation and vandalism” that Mapps said protesters waged against Ryan. “My colleagues and I have come together today, issuing a challenge to every Portlander to reject hate and violence and extinguish hate with love,” Mapps stated.
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He compared the intimidation of Ryan for his vote to the experiences many Black people have had. “I know what it’s like for a mob to roll up on your house in the middle of the night because you had the audacity to vote, the audacity to hope,” Mapps said. “That’s what it’s like to be Black in the US”
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Ryan said in a statement, “I appreciate that members of our community are passionate. But trespassing at the home I share with my fiancé, disrupting and intimidating my neighbors and me — and vandalizing my property — is not a productive or safe way to express opinions. I have elderly neighbors and I fear for their safety and well-being.”
It is quite a tense time in Portland, which has been the scene of months of protests and also some late-summer clashes that pitted protesters against those who have rallied to support law enforcement and President Donald Trump.
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During Wednesday’s recent protests in Portland, some activists were unhappy with the reelection of Mayor Ted Wheeler. In social media posts, they suggested that marchers could vent some of their frustration on downtown businesses that had supported the mayor in his campaign.
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Several hundred people joined in the march that unfolded in the early evening through downtown, and some began smashing windows in buildings that included a church that offered food to the homeless and the Roseland Theater, a concert venue now shuttered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Portland police, Multnomah County Sheriff’s deputies and Oregon State Police troopers, responded with a flood of law enforcement officials who arrived in vehicles, sirens blaring, and flooded into the streets and declared a riot.
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