Title: OT:FW: [globalnews] The Battle of Portland
From: http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/08.25A.wrp.portland.htm
We Are Not The Enemy! - The Battle of Portland
by William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Report
Saturday, 24 August, 2002
The image is chilling. A middle-aged woman, plainly dressed, with a puff of
auburn hair, is clutched in a hammer-lock by a Portland police officer
dressed in full riot gear. His riot baton is jammed high under her chin.
Around her, three more armor-clad police officers swarm in, face-masks
down. The woman's face is contorted in terror. In her hand is a sign
protesting George W. Bush.
This was the scene on the streets of Portland, OR, on the evening of August
22nd as captured by a photographer for the Associated Press. Thousands of
peaceful protesters had descended upon the Hilton Hotel where Mr. Bush was
attending a political fundraiser for Senator Gordon Smith. They held signs
reading, Drop Bush, not Bombs, and other similar slogans. Among the
protesters were pregnant women, parents with infants and small children,
elderly citizens, and citizens in wheelchairs
According to a report by CBS News, the protest became unruly when some of
the fundraiser attendees were jostled as they moved through the crowd
towards the entrance to the hotel. At that point, the riot police swarmed
in, swinging clubs and dousing the crowd with pepper spray. Rubber bullets
were also fired into the crowd, and snipers were seen on the roofs
surrounding the scene. The protesters responded by hammering on the hoods
of police cars and screaming, We are not the enemy!
A man named Randy, who attended the protest, reports the sequence of events
as follows:
I was between 5th and 6th on the sidewalk. Maybe the ones in front were
warned to move, but I didn't hear any warning. It had been a peaceful
protest. Suddenly the police came forward spraying pepper spray. A man
nearby with an infant in a backpack got hit real good. The baby's face was
so red I thought it had quit breathing. From the other direction came cop
cars through the crowd and rubber bullets were fired at those closest to
the cars. I kept retreating but the cops kept spraying. Lots of people were
sprayed, including the cameraman from Channel 2 KATU.
Other eyewitness accounts from the streets of Portland similarly describe
what appears to have been a terrifyingly violent response from the police
to a peaceful protest by assembled American citizens.
This is a profoundly disturbing turn of events. Mr. Bush is protested
wherever he goes these days, and the crowds which attend them are growing.
These are not black-clad anarchists kicking in windows, however. The woman
who was attacked by the police looked as ordinary as any small-town
librarian, and anarchists are smart enough to leave their children at home
if there is a riot in the offing. The streets of Portland were filled on
August 22nd by average American citizens seeking to inform the President of
their disfavor regarding the manner in which he is governing their country.
They were rewarded with the business end of a billy club, a face-full of
pepper spray, and the jarring impact of a rubber bullet.
If America needed one more example of the cancer that has been chewing
through the guts of our most basic freedoms since Mr. Bush assumed office,
they can look to Portland. The right to freely assemble and petition the
government for a redress of grievances has been rescinded at the point of a
gun.
The imperative is clear. Such violence by the authorities cannot go
unchallenged. The next time Mr. Bush appears in public, there must be even
more concerned Americans to greet him. They must face the baton and the
pepper spray, they must stare into the shielded faces of the police, and
they must stand in non-violent disobedience of the idea that they are not
allowed to be there. The men and women who faced the brunt of police fury
in Portland are to be lauded as American patriots, and their actions must
be duplicated by us all. The groups which organized this protest, and the
ones to come, deserve our praise.
The media, which spent much of the evening reporting that only a few
hundred protesters were in attendance, must be browbeaten into reporting
the facts from both sides - from the police, who reportedly detained people
like the woman in the picture for their own safety, and from the
protesters who took a savage beating for daring to stand against Mr. Bush.
If the battle of Portland is allowed to cast even more fear into the hearts
and minds of Americans, we have lost yet another swath of freedoms. Stand
and be counted if you can.
The whole world is watching.
--
Be the change you want to see in the world.
--Gandhi
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