On the streets of Portland, a strange armed conflict unfolds night after night. It is raw, frightening and painful on both sides of an iron fence separating the protesters on the outside and federal agents guarding a courthouse inside.
A group of demonstrators addresses the crowd during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse on Thursday, July 23, 2020, in Portland, Ore. This weekend, journalists for The Associated Press spent the weekend both outside, with the protesters, and inside the courthouse, with the federal agents, documenting the fight that has become an unlikely centerpiece of the protest movement gripping America.
A few minutes later, as night fell, the music stopped — and the march to the federal courthouse began.Two blocks west and one block south, the several dozen federal law enforcement agents guarding the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse could hear the protesters coming. The terrace outside the front door was littered with garbage, the steps leading to the courthouse splattered with paint. A mixture of anti-police and Black Lives Matter graffiti covered the building’s outer walls and columns to a height of about 10 feet .
“I can’t walk outside without being in fear for my life,” he said. “I am worried for my life, every time I walk outside of the building.”This weekend, journalists for the Associated Press were both outside, with the protesters, and inside the courthouse, with the federal agents, documenting the chaotic fight that has become an unlikely centerpiece of the protest movement gripping America.
Thirty minutes later, the fence rocked and leaned sharply as dozens of protesters pressed their weight against it, some of them throwing their bodies against it at a running start. The fence, designed to absorb the impact from a car going up to 30 mph , undulated like a wave and tilted dangerously before springing back.
As she spoke, small pods of three to four protesters dressed in black circulated in the crowd, stopping every few minutes to point green laser beams in the eyes of agents posted as lookouts on porticoes on the courthouse’s upper stories. The agents above were silhouetted against the dark sky as dozens of green laser dots and a large spotlight played on the courthouse walls, projected from the back of the crowd.
Agents on scaffolding fired pepper balls through the window slits at the crowd while others sat quietly on marble benches in the lobby, alone or in small groups, and waited for their turn at the fence. “You see a lot of commentary on social media about, ‘Well, they’re wearing protective gear so that it’s not going to hurt them.’ Okay, I’ll put the same protective gear on you and I’ll throw a brick at your head and you tell me if you feel comfortable with that,” said a senior U.S. Marshals Service official who’s overseeing the response in Portland.
“I think what people fail to realize is, us in Portland, we’re still playing defense so anything we do, it’s a defensive maneuver. We are protecting ourselves at the very most and each other,” said Eli Deschera, 21. After six years working for the military, Rogers said he felt better equipped than many to find talking points that might make the agents think about their mission more critically.
By the end of the night, five other federal agents would be injured, including another who got a concussion when he was hit in the head with a commercial-grade firework. One agent was hospitalized. Several agents have lingering vision problems from the lasers. In the very front, those with gas masks formed a wall against the tear gas and pepper balls with shields and umbrellas. Protesters who began wielding leaf blowers to push the gas back on the federal agents several days ago found that now the agents, too, had leaf blowers.
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