Portland protests are calmer after federal agents agree to leave

(AUGUST 1, 2020) Thousands of people have been demonstrating every evening in downtown Portland for more than 60 days since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Most protesters are part of the "Black Lives Matter" movement. They want to see an end to police brutality and systemic racism. However, the peaceful demonstrations outside of a federal courthouse have often ended in nightly confrontations with local and state police.

Two weeks ago, President Donald Trump sent law enforcement agents to Portland. He wanted to protect federal property. According to Oregon Public Broadcasting, "To carry out that mission, the officers regularly engaged in violent and indiscriminate attacks on demonstrators using crowd control weapons, sometimes straying blocks from federal property to tear gas protesters and chase them out of downtown."

Demonstrators tried to remove a fence around the courthouse. They also lit fires and threw objects at agents in the courthouse. Some pointed lights and lasers at the building.

In return, the agents fired tear gas and sometimes non-lethal munitions. They used a variety of ways to make people leave, including arresting 94 protesters as of Wednesday. The city police also arrested more than 400 people over the past two months.

Oregon's governor and Portland's mayor said that the presence of federal agents was not working and was not welcome. It made things worse, they said, not better. The governor and the mayor wanted the federal officers to leave. Earlier this week, the state and federal governments agreed that federal officers would leave Portland and state police would take over.

On July 29, the governor tweeted, "After my discussions with VP Pence and others, the federal government has agreed to withdraw federal officers from Portland. They have acted as an occupying force & brought violence. Starting tomorrow, all Customs and Border Protection & ICE officers will leave downtown Portland."

In another tweet, Trump insisted that U.S. officers stay in Portland until the violence was under control. He threatened to send the National Guard to "clean out" what he called a "beehive of terrorists." However, the Associated Press studied the protesters in downtown Portland. It found 95% of those arrested were local. Most seemed to be young college students with no criminal record. Most were charged with minor crimes, and most have been released.

Thursday night was the first night after this deal was made. News sources report that the protests continued, but they were peaceful and no major confrontations between demonstrators and state police.