Hundreds of people on Monday morning gathered in a small town south of Portland for a vehicle rally in support of US President Donald Trump — just over a week after a member of a far-right group was fatally shot after a Trump caravan went through Oregon’s largest city.
Later, pro-Trump supporters and counterprotesters clashed at the Oregon State Capitol.
Vehicles waving flags for Trump, the QAnon conspiracy theory and in support of police gathered at about noon at Clackamas Community College in Oregon City.
Photo: AFP
The rally’s organizers said that they would drive toward the state capital, Salem, and most left the caravan before that.
A smaller group of members of right-wing group the Proud Boys went on to Salem, where a crowd of about 50 pro-Trump supporters had gathered.
At one point on Monday afternoon, the right-wing crowd rushed a smaller group of Black Lives Matters counterdemonstrators, firing paint-gun pellets at them. There were skirmishes and the Black Lives Matter group dispersed shortly after local police arrived.
Photo: AFP
Organizers of the earlier vehicle rally said that they did not plan to enter Multnomah County, where Portland is located. Oregon City is about 32km south of Portland.
In Portland on Monday, Black Lives Matter supporters rallied in a city park and demonstrated peacefully, KOIN TV reported.
“Teacher unions are part of the labor movement, and I feel like it’s really important for people who are members of a union to step up and say: ‘Our labor supports Black Lives Matter and we are ready to organize in support of systemic change,’” educator Joanne Shepard told the TV station.
On Aug. 29, Aaron “Jay” Danielson, a supporter of right-wing group the Patriot Prayer, was killed in Portland after a pro-Trump caravan went downtown. Trump supporters fired paint-ball canisters at counterdemonstrators, who tried to block their way.
Danielson’s suspected killer, Michael Forest Reinoehl, was on Thursday fatally shot by police. Reinoehl was a supporter of Antifa — shorthand for anti-fascists and an umbrella description for far-left-leaning militant groups.
Demonstrations in Portland started in late May after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and have continued for more than 100 days.
A fire started outside a police precinct on Portland’s north side resulted in about 15 arrests during protests on Sunday night into Monday morning, police said.
Demonstrators protesting police brutality began marching at about 9pm on Sunday and stopped at the North Precinct Community Policing Center, the site of several volatile protests in recent months.
Shortly after their arrival, those in the crowd began chanting, among other things: “Burn it down,” police said, while some in the group lit a mattress.
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