Crazed leftists attacked a police station in Portland, Oregon, Friday night. They injured cops, tried to run them over, and damaged police cars in yet another sign the so-called street “protests” are nowhere near over.
Cops declared a riot a little after 1 a.m.
But if the description from the Portland police is even half accurate, it was neither a protest nor a riot.
It was a battle for control of a police station — perhaps the beginning of open street warfare in the liberal city — likely staged by Antifa goons and the terrorists of the Marxist Black Lives Matter movement.
The Attack Opens
The mob of some 150-200 “protesters” came arrayed for battle when they gathered at Irving Park on Northeast Fremont Street, about a mile from the police station, the official report says. Many wore “protective gear including helmets, eye protection, gas masks, and body armor. Some carried homemade wooden shields.”
To stop an attack on the precinct, cops tactically parked unoccupied patrol cars and put up yellow police tape on nearby North Emerson Street. That’s because All Cops Are B*****ds (ACAB) “protesters” have tried to set the building ablaze in the past.
“A police loudspeaker provided warnings to the crowd not to enter city property and on the closed area,” the report says.
Then came the full-blown assault on the station, the cars, and the cops themselves:
Almost immediately the officers were targeted by thrown bottles, eggs, and green lasers toward their eyes. The lasers are powerful enough that they’re capable of causing serious, permanent eye damage. The police sound truck issued further warnings, notifying the crowd that officers have observed people in the area of North Precinct throwing projectiles and pointing lasers at officers. Anyone who is involved in criminal behavior including throwing projectiles and/or laser pointing, is subject to arrest, citation and/or use of force, including, but not limited to, crowd control agents and impact weapons.
The warning didn’t stop the Red brigade, and although officers retreated to prevent the deranged contingent from escalating their attack, that’s exactly what they did.
For three hours, the report says, ACAB thugs “pelted the police vehicles with softball-sized rocks, glass bottles, golf balls, ball bearings, metal railroad spikes, and plastic eggs filled with paint. There were also balloons filled with feces thrown on the cars and even a torn up street sign was used to vandalize the marked police cars. Windows were broken and tires were deflated.”
Still, the officers stood back.
That emboldened the rioting thugs to press their luck and approach the closed area. “Targeted, selective arrests were made. Some limited crowd control munitions were deployed, including inert smoke canisters,” the report says, and then cops again tried to “de-escalate.”
And again, the effort failed.
Though cops in a sound truck ordered the marauders to retreat, they kept attacking in the hope that cops would respond. The goons used lacrosse sticks to fire rocks at the cops. Two were struck. A ball-bearing hit a loudspeaker truck nearly one block away.
Even worse, some in the ACAB army tried to pretend they were reporters. “Numerous people with ‘press’ markings encroached on the closed area. One person with ‘press’ written on their garments deflated another police vehicle tire,” the report says.
And again, despite warnings from the sound trucks, “the group continued to escalate.”
ACAB arsonists set a fire in the middle of Northeast Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard and pushed a dumpster into it.
Riot Declared
At 1:07 a.m., the cops declared the attack an “unlawful assembly” and tried to move the protestors away from the area. The communist protesters counterattacked with rocks. At 1:10 a.m., cops declared the unprovoked attack a riot.
A vehicle “tried to run over some officers,” a hurled rock struck another officer, and a green laser tagged a police air unit.
Cops fired “a sponge-tipped less-lethal round” at a thug who had tossed rocks. One officer suffered a cut leg from a thrown rock, while another sprained his ankle.
Cops arrested nine of the thugs and charged them with myriad offenses including riot, criminal mischief, attempted assault, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and interfering with a police officer.
The battle for the north precinct is the second major attack on a government building in the last week.
On August 19, the Reds attacked the offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Photo: Portland Police Bureau
R. Cort Kirkwood is a longtime contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
