The Riot Squad

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Continued from yesterday...

After the protesters began to march the police came out in full force and followed them through the city. Everyone thought that they were going to go shut down one of the bridges as they have done past during demonstrations. When they got near the Morrison Bridge, the riot squad lined up across the street and stopped the bridge traffic, even though the protest was staying safely on the sidewalk (with help from the non-riot cops). So for about 15 minutes the police blocked the bridge to make sure the protest didn't block the bridge.

 

March 28, 2003

see yesterday's photo

Ouch, my wrist!
Ouch, my eyes!

And there was one pepper spraying incident. When some of the protesters tried to step off the sidewalk towards the line of police officers, a couple of them started to fire their pepper spay into the crowd. I was across the street where all the reporters were waiting with their cameras for a full riot to break out.

 

After protesting for about 2 hours the crowd finally circled all of downtown Portland and came to rest across the street from the federal courthouse. The crowd came to rest and finally started to dissipate.

 

Tensions were running very high. This protest was much less eventful than recent ones and the police were geared up for the worst to happen. The protest seemed to have a real militant faction that also wanted action. Still Little happened. There were a few arrests.