Thread by @BritishPodcast

Portland is about to be national news again because a man was killed here last night.

This means that the entire Republican apparatus is going to activate and opine about what happened and what should be done in a city they've never visited.

So here is one local's perspective.

This is our home.

I think people forget this, or just don't care.

This is our home.

For the past four years we have endured an endless stream of right wing provocateurs who come to Portland looking for trouble.

And we have endured it... but not without cost.

Summer, which was once characterized by waterfront festivals, is now just the time of the year when the right wing leads mobs to the city.

And as a result of these mobs locals have been shot at, had their necks broken, been stabbed to death, been assaulted, the list goes on...

Part of the rage that's directed at us is cultural.

Portland is a deep blue dot in a sea of red, and that fact is bitterly resented by many Republicans in the surrounding towns.

We're seen as living in their territory, and imposing our values by dragging "their" state blue.

But part of it is structural.

Our police force is mostly drawn from those same red areas, and is marked by a culture that resents Portland as much (if not moreso) than the folks out in Washougal and Canby.

That creates a remarkably antagonistic relationship with the public.

And that culture is no doubt responsible for the indiscriminate use chemical weapons by Portland Police.

It isn't uncommon to see neighborhoods cloaked in tear gas because someone threw a water bottle.

A water bottle.

For that, entire neighborhoods get gassed.

But that culture has a more insidious aspect to it.

It results in the police making common cause with people who resent Portland as much as they do.

Enter Patriot Prayer, the Proud Boys, and virtually any other right wing group that expresses an interest in causing problems.

Right wing groups have rioted at local businesses, used vehicles at weapons, set up sniper's nests in our downtown buildings, used chemical weapons, attacked people with hammers and other weapons, broken necks, killed multiple people... the list goes on and on.

Interestingly, when they do, the cops tend to go on break.

This results in our police only "policing" locals while repeatedly letting outside right wing groups go crazy.

And the cops assure us it's a coincidence that, once the right wing leaves the area, they start gassing us.

And they desperately want us to forget that we have texts of them coordinating with far right violent groups.

And they DEFINITELY don't want us to remember that they were caught trying to help a right winger avoid getting picked up on a warrant.

It's all a coincidence, you see.

The disparate policing has been evident for years, and that is why Portland has become a Mecca for far right groups who want to earn their stripes.

Everyone knows that the only resistance they'll face is from the locals... and everyone knows the Police will attack those locals.

This has lead large portions of Portland to want to defund the Police.

Our police budget is insane, and it gets bigger every year while we are asked to cut other programs... and that is deeply resented by those of us who have been paying attention and see what the cops do.

This has also meant that the cops went from being awful to being downright sadistic.

Defund the Police is a direct attack on their livelihood, and they know it.

So we aren't just getting gassed. Now we have cops tearing off our masks and pepper spraying us while we're cuffed.

It also means that the cops, who were already passively greenlighting far right violence, are doing it even more.

Last weekend Portland was subject to some of the worst riots any of us have ever seen.

The violence came from the far right. And the cops did nothing.

Well, the cops did nothing until the far right had vacated the area.

Once that happened, though, then the cops came off break and started gassing and beating the locals in the street.

That happened last week.

Which brings us to this week.

It's summer. It's post 2016. And that means Portland is going to be the subject of another republican right of passage event.

This time, it was a bunch of trucks slowly rolling around our streets with "TRUMP 2020" flags while armed people rode in the flatbeds.

As is the case with all these events, the purpose here wasn't to raise awareness. It wasn't to convert or persuade.

It was to intimidate.

And this isn't speculation. If you look at their posts, you can see many of them talking about how they're going to show us who's boss.

That's why they had the weapons, that's why they had the Trump flags...

And as usual, the Police facilitated this mass intimidation of the public.

Roads were closed off, an escort was provided.

Pretty much what Portland has endured on a weekly basis for years now.

And when they started driving through downtown ramming into pedestrians, pepper macing people on the streets and jumping out of their trucks to assault people... Portland Police was nowhere to be seen.

They had Trump flags... so they were allowed to do whatever they want.

PPB will literally allow people to escape warrants and violate parole IF (and this is a big if) they see you as an ally.

Unfortunately for the people of Portland, PPB does not see us as allies. We are the enemy.

We feel like we are an occupied city because we are.

And that only escalates things.

More angry men begin to see Portland as a way to prove their manhood. And more Portlanders realize the only way we will be safe is if we are in the streets protecting each other from the cops and their far right allies.

It keeps escalating.

And last night, someone was shot in the chest during one of these far right events.

And I don't know who it was, nor specifically why it happened, but I did know that something like this was inevitable.

We have spent years begging PPB to stop coddling the far right.

We've spent years begging our leaders to do more to protect us.

We've spent years begging our government to do more to fix the horrific way that policing is happening in this city and across the nation.

This is why.

We were worried about exactly this.

And, to be clear, I think this was always the plan for the far right.

If you look on twitter (including from the white house) you'll see a flood of incredibly excited far right people posting about this shooting.

This is why we kept begging Portland Police and Ted Wheeler to do something about the flood of provocateurs who were invading our city.

Exactly this.

And this is why we are demanding a change of leadership and policing in this city.

Ted Wheeler and Portland Police own this.

This went viral while I was taking my one year old to the park.

Remember that when another one of these groups comes Portland to intimidate us.

This is our home.

And obviously I do have a podcast I could promote, but ACAB.

Defund the Police.