Bush protest turns angry and ugly

State of emergency declared as peaceful protest takes a turn for the worse Police fire pepper spray as hundreds of marchers riot over president’s visit President’s fund-raiser for Sen. Gordon Smith starts as scheduled

By

The Portland Tribune, Aug 23, 2002, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Police using pepper spray and batons subdued more than 1,500 demonstrators who gathered in downtown Portland Thursday to protest President Bush, who was appearing at a Republican fund-raiser at the Portland Hilton hotel.

The crowd was protesting the war on terrorism, environmental policies and the U.S. role in the Middle East. As drummers beat out a cadence, marchers chanted slogans, including “George Bush, stop the war.” No arrests had been made by 6 p.m. Thursday.

The protest started with a peaceful afternoon rally in the North Park Blocks and march up Southwest Broadway to the hotel, but quickly degenerated into rowdy confrontations with police manning barricades and motorists unlucky enough to find themselves surrounded by demonstrators. Demonstrators blocked cars with bicycles and even stopped TriMet buses and MAX trains at the beginning of the rush hour.

Police seemed unprepared by the size of the crowd, not providing traffic control for motorists whose evening commute suddenly ground to a halt.

The bulk of the crowd moved from barricade to barricade, chanting slogans, beating drums and yelling at police until abruptly pulling back and moving to another barricade.

But the confrontations turned violent at a barricade at the intersection of Southwest Sixth Avenue and Taylor Street when police decided to push the crowd back, first with nightsticks and then with pepper spray.

“The spray was fired because the police had to move back the crowd a half-block, and when they st arted moving the crowd back É the crowd started throwing things at them,” said Portland police spokesman Brian Schmautz.

A protester identifying himself as Oswald Bean said, “They started pushing the line back with their sticks and the large cans of pepper spray. I turned to leave, but they hit me in the back of the head and sprayed me in the face. They weren’t very nice.” Bean was washing pepper spray out of his eyes.

Using bullhorns, police officers told protesters they were declaring “a state of emergency.”

Eight police sharpshooters watched from the roof of a building at Southwest Sixth Avenue and Taylor Street. There were police on foot, on horse, in all-terrain vehicles and in a paddy wagon. Some members of the crowd jumped onto police cars and punched at the windows. A shot was heard but apparently came from a beanbag gun. Another protester displayed a large welt that apparently came from a rubber bullet.

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