Shooting at a Portland Protest Against Police Violence Leaves 1 Dead

[moriah]

22. Very little of the damage took place during permitted, organized protests.

So I'm weird. I was trained as a green hat back in NYC during the 2002-2003 anti-war protests.

I was back home in my own state (and freshly divorced) when the RNC/DNC protests happened.

In NYC, there was a rule about allowing protests without a permit within certain rules. I was late to one (worked nights in Long Island) where the police had finally had enough and did a mass arrest of everyone on the opposite side of the sidewalk and not blocking half of it. Those arrested won their lawsuit, and I spent that day printing out the "You're Out, but Not Done" type booklets for arrestees to know when to appear for their Desk Appearance Tickets, etc, and standing outside 1PP to hand them to those released.

But since they won the lawsuit, clearly our affinity group was trying to play by the rules. No bullhorns, no blocking of pedestrian traffic, not in the street.

The RNC/DNC protests have often seemed to be more what we used to call the "Anarchist Block" people. They didn't care about rules and damages -- and also really didn't have organizers who may have had any type of deep pockets.

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There were MANY peaceful, organized protests during that time. There were also a lot of folks who were angry, pent up because of COVID rules, etc, and went out of their own accord/not part of an organized group to break things.

I would support lawsuits against anyone who was organizing people to come from other states, etc, to protest at specific sights being liable for damages -- at least if the purpose of their organizing was not peaceful protest like many were, but were specifically wanting to burn a targeted town down.

Unfortunately, organizing isn't the same as it was 20 years ago. I had met and taken classes with the core group of people who showed up to the protests I went to (or at least, my affinity group's representatives) but today people organize online and sometimes to cross state lines vs just the people living there being a part of it. Now if people organize a protest and say there should be certain rules, if they make it public or even on a FB group only it's highly likely someone who doesn't need to be protesting will be out there and act like an idiot.

That's another thing... our people, even the ones not acting as legal observers, took classes about jail solidarity, etc -- and taking/offering those classes allowed them to screen out people who seemed either like plants or were wanting to go further than we did insofar as "direct action" -- for our group, that meant sitting with arms interlocked in front of an entrance or something. They knew they'd get arrested. but they also knew to not resist the arrest (and weren't chained or anything, so easy to break up). We weren't into laying in the streets.