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the May Day mayhem? If so, let us know what you thought.
Send your submissions (100 words or less) to
May Day, c/o Willamette Week
822 SW 10th Ave., 97205
or e-mail to mayday@wweek.com.
For almost five hours on Monday, Portland witnessed a
running battle between protesters and police the likes
of which hasn't been seen in this city since the Gulf
War protests of 1991.
Three hundred and fifty protesters spread across two
blocks of downtown, marching, singing and drumming. Technically,
the march was illegal but in line with the First Amendment.
It's not yet possible to gauge who provoked whom. But
it's clear that from 3 to 4:30 pm--the heart of the march--it
was panic in Portland. More important, it's also clear,
after spending much of Monday afternoon following the
protesters, that in a number of instances police didn't
have a sound tactical plan, lost their heads and erred
on the side of treating protesters with--to put it delicately--excessive
use of force.
The event started out in the South Park Blocks as a simple
May Day march. A grab bag of protest groups had collected
there, loosely confederated under the flag of anti-globalization.
An organizer announced that police would allow marchers
to snake through downtown Portland on their way to Powell's
as long as protesters kept to one lane of traffic.
Four blocks later, at the corner of Southwest 5th Avenue
and Main Street, the whole thing turned ugly. For obscure
reasons, cops suddenly started lowering their batons and
forced what looked to be orderly protesters, still confined
to one lane of traffic, off the street and onto the sidewalk.
The cops arrested one woman, another fell to the ground
after being knocked down by mounted police, and two cops,
trying to arrest another woman, got into a tug-of-war
with protesters over her.
Somehow, emotions calmed and the march peacefully wound
its way to Southwest 3rd Avenue and Salmon Street. Here,
too, the cops did not have their act together. Usually
police allow marchers to stay together, in part as a form
of crowd control and in part as a courtesy. But at this
location the cops had ATVs and the mounted patrol in the
middle of Southwest Salmon Street, forcing the marchers
to spill across both lanes of the street and onto both
sidewalks. A mounted officer backed a young man into an
ATV; when he put up his hands to protect himself, three
cops threw him to the pavement. Cops began barking out
contradictory directions: One group of three police ordered
people into the street, another ordered them onto the
sidewalks.
A block away at the World Trade Center, police said through
megaphones, "We are declaring an emergency. You have three
minutes to disperse." The declaration seemed ill-timed--the
marchers had calmed down and were peaceably assembled.
So everyone trooped over to the Salmon Street fountain.
Here the cops issued another three-minute dispersal order.
They again gave conflicting orders about which direction
people were supposed to go. Then riot cops and mounted
cops started forcing marchers south onto the grass of
Tom McCall Waterfront Park, without saying where they
were herding them.
Between the fountain and Front Avenue, events grew even
uglier. One cop leveled his beanbag shotgun and blasted
three rounds at the legs of a young man within 20 feet
of this reporter. Another young man nearby was clubbed
in his right knee, apparently because he wasn't moving
fast enough. Cops sprinted after fleeing protesters and
opened up with their beanbag guns. A mounted cop later
rammed his horse into the fellow, who was already limping,
as he tried to cross Front Avenue.
Between Front Avenue and Southwest Broadway, the police
focused on breaking the marchers into progressively smaller
groups by using batons, horses and pepper spray. Cops
were not telling people where to go, just shouting "go."
This reporter saw 10 people who were standing on the sidewalk,
confused about where to go, only to be arrested and placed
in zip-tie handcuffs.
It's hard not to think the police response erred on the
side of aggression. Whether they did so because of fears
that Portland might replay the battle of Seattle, or because
police chief Mark Kroeker plans to bring LAPD-style policing
to Portland, is entirely unclear. What does seem clear
is that Mayor Vera Katz (also the police commissioner)
was a bit premature when she pronounced on Monday that
police behaved properly.
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Willamette Week | originally
published April 26,
2000
