Thread by @mtracey

Portland mayor Ted Wheeler has made an appearance at tonight’s protests. He is greeted by chants of, “Fuck Ted Wheeler”

More:

“Ted Wheeler sucks fed tit”
“You fucking scum”
“Ted, I’ll fight you in the street right now”
“Ted shot us too”
“Ted Wheeler eats at chain restaurants”

Ted Wheeler is conducting some kind of “dialogue” about how he intends to address racism in Portland culture. It’s totally inaudible due to chants of “RESIGN. NOW.” and “SHAME.” They are shining a projector onto the area where he’s speaking with a demand for him to resign

Ted Wheeler tries to reason with protesters, 99% of whom loathe him. He assures an interlocutor that they are “aligned” on some issues

Ted Wheeler is conducting what he refers to as a “listening session.” He declares that he “stands with” the protesters and manages to elicit a surprisingly robust round of applause by railing against the federal troops deployed to Portland and Trump

The (black) protest emcee keeps imploring the overwhelmingly white protest crowd to listen to Ted Wheeler speak, but chants of “Fuck Ted Wheeler” keep breaking out. The emcee says Wheeler “put his life on the line” by showing up tonight, which is a bit of an odd statement

Helpful clarification 👇

Ted Wheeler is leaving after the crowd grew restless. People screaming “Fuck you Ted” and “You’re full of shit” as he departs

Ted Wheeler is still lingering a bit on his way out. A (white) woman just screamed at him, “Fuck you Ted Wheeler. Shut the fuck up and let the black people talk.” This crowd is at least 95% white

Fireworks being shot into the federal building

Fire set outside federal building

There’s a fairly robust attempt underway to topple the fence in front of the federal building, with the Feds issuing audio warnings

Ted Wheeler continues to be greeted by friendly constituents as protesters attempt to set fire to the federal building in the background

Of note: I haven’t seen a single uniformed Portland police officer anywhere in the area. The guys guarding Ted Wheeler were dressed inconspicuously in plainclothes, almost looked like they could be protesters themselves

Fence around federal building has been penetrated

Federal troop just ran out and cleared the intruders

Ok, the Portland Police Bureau just declared a riot (via disembodied emergency speaker) and ordered protesters to disperse or be subject to tear gas/arrest. So I’m probably going to disperse at this point, as I don’t want to get COVID in jail or something

Pretty funny that a riot was declared by Portland Police shortly after Ted Wheeler left for the night, even though the “riotous” conditions hadn’t changed. Ted did take unfiltered questions for a long time though. And got teargassed by Feds. So I guess you can give him “credit”