Portland made the national news.
Not for being a progressive city with over 100 cannabis shops or more strip clubs per capita than any other city in the country, or for its numerous food carts.
It didn’t make the news for its many craft beers.
It didn’t make the news for the many kinds of beards its male denizens sport.
It didn’t make the news for being a sanctuary city.
It didn’t make the news because our attorney general, Ellen Rosenblum, has joined other liberal state attornies general in taking a progressive stand against Trumpian policies.
It didn’t even make the news for being a magnet for armed right-wing fanatics being bused in to demonstrate. That was a few days ago and it was disturbing enough:
It made the national news but not because the protesters clashed at the rally.
.
It made the news because the police attacked the anti-fascist protestors. The liberals.
Whether we may not always agree with their methods, they are our people.
Police in riot gear tried to keep the two groups apart in the traditionally liberal city. But when that didn’t work witnesses said the police protected the right-wing protesters — many of whom had been bussed in from out of town — and fired flash-bang grenades at counterprotesters. Police also rushed anti-fascist protesters and shoved some of them out of the street.
One flash-bang grenade canister reportedly pierced an anti-fascist’s helmet, cutting into his head. “I’m certain he would be dead if he wasn’t wearing a helmet,” 39-year-old Jenny Nickolaus, an anti-fascist demonstrator and friend of the victim, told HuffPost.
My friends and I were worried about armed liberal-hating protesters incited by Trump’s rhetoric hurting our peaceful residents.
We didn’t consider that Portland police would attack, let alone seriously injury peaceful protestors.
Here’s what local KOIN TV had to say on their website. It's not even their top story.
The story did get more prominent coverage on KGW.
This is how the local Sinclair owned TV station is covering the story.
I live in a senior facility with 500 mostly liberal residents. While there are lots of traditional Republicans almost all of them are appalled by what Trump is doing to the country and their political party.
We often talk about living in a bubble and how thankful we are that we live in both a progressive city and a blue state with our liberal bi-sexual governer, Kate Brown, and our two excellent senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden who are on the national stage. We take pride in when we see them on MSNBC.
We live in the suburbs but enjoy easy access via light rail to downtown Portland where we feel the police are there to protect us.
Now, what can we make of this?
Addendum:
I served as an auxiliary police officer for 20 years, had dozens of police officers in therapy, and published Police Stressline, the number one website on police stress. By far the majority of cops I knew as friends or clients would never abuse their powers. I have been appalled at the lowering of hiring standards in the past 15-20 years with the hiring of bigoted and/or violence-prone officers. I hold police chiefs accountable.
Monday, Aug 6, 2018 · 2:41:11 PM +00:00 · HalBrown
When I was an auxiliary officer in Mason, Michigan (for 12 years, thousands of hours of riding with a regular officer usually at night) our seven-member department used to hold an annual Easter egg hunt at Raynor Park. The kids learned to see the police as their friends.
We didn’t even have riot gear, let alone semi-automatic pistols. Our chief reminded us that in most instances we should take our sunglasses off when we made traffic stops so drivers saw our eyes. We were taught to de-escalate.
But then again the chiefs that swore me in have been unique because they liked the idea of having a shrink in their department.
I taught handling mentally impaired people at three different police academies and emphasized listening skills, patience, and doing whatever officers could not to intimidate anxious people. I don’t even know if this is a course still being taught.
Today many cities dress their cops in black instead of blue and give them helmets instead of hats. We wore kevlar under our shirts (and I never even had a bulletproof vest). Now cops wear flax jackets festooned with intimidating gear on the outside like they are about to do battle with the Taliban.