Downtown once again. Maybe 700+ people in chapman and lownsdale tonight. And someone, two months into this, had the bright idea to rent honey buckets! So people don’t have to risk federal charges to pee in Terry Schrunck! 
Have I mentioned that I will never, at any point, learn the correct spelling of Terrrie Shrunk? Cuz I won’t.
We arrived just in time for the #wallofmomsportland moving, in formation, to the front of the federal courthouse.
The Revolutionary Communist Party is here with a sign. Maybe it’s just flashbacks to anti-Iraq war demos, but that makes me think it’s less likely anyone will do anything drastic.
11:29 and fed-rad is threatening munitions. Worth noting that this crowd has done nothing but stand and listen to music and speeches since we arrived. But now they’re all chanting “Feds go home!”
As fed-rad started talking, someone behind me yelled “show me your butthole!” Which is new.
Also: umbrella-lacross stick combos! (I checked with this person. They were ok w/their picture being posted. Also they weren’t the one who said the butthole thing.)
Also: umbrella-lacross stick combos! (I checked with this person. They were ok w/their picture being posted. Also they weren’t the one who said the butthole thing.)
This is your 11:45 balloon update: wind is blowing lightly south.
Well. Nothing really happened for an hour. Now there’s a small fire behind the fence. Fed-rad is telling folks not to throw fireworks. But haven’t seen any fireworks thrown. There were a few set off earlier.
There was an audio reminder about the current injunction that the feds were under along with a request for them to exit the city
Some of the federal officers on a high floor of the building who were just shining lights onto the group of press taking photos of them. It must be because we are so cute and nothing ominous at all.
Y’know what was harder to pull off, back when the fence only had concrete on the inside?
Grafitti.
Now that there’s concrete lining the building on Main, 3rd and Salmon (and blocking bike lanes) folks are making up for lost time.
Grafitti.
Now that there’s concrete lining the building on Main, 3rd and Salmon (and blocking bike lanes) folks are making up for lost time.
Ok, I hadn’t seen any fireworks for quite a while. But a big one went off a while ago. And there appears to be a road flare inside the fence.
“Small dick energy” getting chanted at the feds up on the ledge.
New chant at the Ledge Feds: “jump or quit!” Aaand another firework. The whole press corps flinches as one.
Feds out, pepper balls deployed
So that was a flashbang. Answered immediately with a firework. Both interrupting the Fed-rad announcement.
Folks in the crowd hypothesizing about why the Feds haven’t tear gassed yet. “You’re out of tear gas” chant. Fed-rad just decided that the few fireworks thrown in response to flashbangs were “intended to harm officers and destroy federal property.”
Unlawful assembly declared by the feds
Pepperballs hitting the fence
#WallofMoms for Black lives standing strong in the face of gas
Moms are unfazed by flashbangs.
Suprise suprise
DHS marching through the park
The trumpet player is amazing every night
Feds push to 5th
DHS gassed an intersection empty but for themselves and then misjudged the wind
Another night of a few thousand dollars of poison in almost empty streets
More of the feds gassing nothing
After this a medic was shot at while trying to extinguish one of the unnecessary smoking canisters and then went to the fence to yell as them about the amount of poison that they were dumping into Portland
A shield, lit by a laser, holding their ground against a barrage of pepper balls.
