Liberal Weakness Brings On CHAZ 2.0
For almost a month multiple blocks in Portland were occupied by supposedly peaceful protesters. They vandalized the buildings and attacked the police precinct with Molotov cocktails, bricks, and bottles. But instead of standing their ground and defending the area police were told to back down by the mayor. They surrendered this area to these "peaceful" protesters and for weeks they made demands from behind their barricaded zone. The protesters only left after they felt their lives were threatened by some unknown source. The mayor then decided to take back the abandoned area. This was a clear show of weak leadership and it looks like more is to come, as now protesters have set up another area that they are declaring is their new Autonomous Zone.
"Portland protesters early Wednesday began to set up tents in the park near the federal courthouse and have barricaded streets to create their own autonomous zone, likened to the since disbanded Capitol Hill Occupied Protest in Seattle.
Demonstrators began erecting tents in downtown Portland’s Lownsdale Square, across the street from the federal Pioneer Courthouse, one of the federal properties Homeland Security sought to protect by bringing federal officers into the city two weeks ago.
A camera at the Portland Standard Building showed protesters beginning to assemble tents late Tuesday night in the same park where “Occupy Portland” set up in 2011, KATU reported.
An unofficial Twitter page attributed to a group of anti-capitalist, anti-fascist teens who call themselves the Pacific Northwest Youth Liberation Front said protesters want to establish the Chinook Land Autonomous Territory, or CLAT, in downtown Portland. The Chinook people include several indigenous groups native to the Pacific Northwest.
“People are needed here ALL night long, especially in the early morning! Get on over rn! Bring some tents,” the Twitter page said, sharing an image of a barricade that read “ACAB,” an acronym meaning "All Cops Are Bastards," and “Black Trans Lives Matter.”
The Portland Police Department said in a statement early Wednesday that a “couple hundred demonstrators gathered at Revolution Hall in Southeast Portland and marched all throughout downtown Portland before ending their march at Pioneer Square” Tuesday evening.
Police said some demonstrators later headed to the Justice Center and by 9:15 p.m. stood in the road, blocking traffic. They then began to barricade Southwest Main Street and Southwest Salmon Street at Southwest Third Avenue using “industrial kitchen appliances, road blockades, and flashing traffic signs.” Demonstrators also lit several fires.
Around 1 a.m., demonstrators “in an organized effort” left the barricades and walked to the Central Precinct “in an attempt to disrupt officers as they walked in from the end of their shift,” the police statement said. At that time, officers removed some of the barricades at Southwest 3rd Avenue and Southwest Salmon Street. But demonstrators then began returning to the area and “officers disengaged."
Demonstrators threw glass bottles and pointed lasers at officers and set fire to what was left of the barricade, police said. Several minutes later, a demonstrator extinguished the fire and several demonstrators began to rebuild the barricade.
Police added: “No CS gas, crowd control munitions, or force was used.”
This is just pathetic, these protesters have been empowered by the weak leadership into thinking peaceful protest somehow allows citizens to just take over parts of the city. I get the mayor is scared of showing possible police brutality. But these are not peaceful protesters, they are criminals seizing parts of the city and declaring it under their control, that's not a peaceful protest.