Tactics and Teargas

diversity of tactics. It's a civil revolt organizing principle that dates back to at least around the nineteen sixties and was popularized by people like Malcolm X. Diversity of tactics emphasizes making periodic use of force for defensive or disruptive purposes, stepping beyond the limits of non violence, but also stopping short of militarization. It's about promoting solidarity between those who

practice peaceful protests and those who are more militant. As Malcolm X put it, our people have made the mistake

of confusing the methods with the objectives. As long as we agree on objectives, we should never fall out with each other just because we believe in different methods or tactics or strategy to reach a common goal, Taking their cues from Malcolm X. Younger and more militant Black liberation activists increasingly supported this approach, with Gloria Richardson of the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee declaring in nineteen sixty four

that the federal government would only be compelled to intervene on behalf of integration only when matters approached the level of insurrection. While support for a diversity of tactics was foundational to struggles throughout the later half of the twentieth century, the phrase itself was popularized by the protests against the

Republican National Convention and Saint Paul Minnesota. In two thousand eight, a broad coalition of labor, anti war, anti globalization, liberal and leftist groups drafted the Saint Paul Principles, which read as follows. Number one, our solidarity will be based on respect for a diversity of tactics and the plans of other groups. Number two. The actions and tactics used will be organized to maintain a separation of time or space.

Number Three. Any debates or criticisms will stay internal to the movement, avoiding any public or media denunciations of fellow activists and events. And number four, we oppose any state repression of dissent, including surveillance, infiltration, disruption, and violence. We agree not to assist law enforcement actions against activists and others.

The principles were a rough compromise, the common ground that most of the ten thousand protesters who gathered in the Twin Cities to face down heavily militarized police could agree to. Twelve years later, spurred on by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the national Uprising of would grapple with those same debates over acceptable and useful tactics. They would

find no easy answers. Here's Garrison in Portland. There has been even further distinction between peaceful protests i long preplanned marches with speeches and no property damage, and non violent protests where people aren't physically harmed but protesters do engage in property destruction for various reasons. It's often said when these different types of protests can happen simultaneously, both a big, more liberal one and a smaller radical one, that's when

you can get the most reforms. As the Wilife explains here. Note the audio is re dubbed. I do think that's important, Like if if we have to work inside the system and are not able to outright destroy it, that is definitely an important aspect because it gives it basically gives the people in charge in this case, will say Ted Wheeler, there are two options you can go with in his mind, the violent rioters wanting to destroy everything, or you can

go with the with the peaceful ones. He's left with two options, and he's always going to take like the peaceful liberal marches. And at the end of the day, it's not nothing because they're still out there, demand of school resource officers out of schools, the gang Task Force gone, and so it basically makes them choose. And I guess if we're working in the system, any progress is good.

Despite police and the media's insistence, vandalism and violence are not the same thing, but there still is a public perception that anarchists, protesters, and rioters are quote destroying the city unquote. Tristan notes how violence and vandalism are misconstruted

and exaggerated in press coverage. I think the kind of the most damaging thing or like the worst kind of counter um like narrative is basically just around the like vandalism that goes on and like uh really kind of blowing that out of proportion and and and trying to act like that is going to uh like you know, ok, it's distracted, Like there's this you know, narrative going around that that's like distracting from the real purpose of the move man that it's you know, like white anarchists like

trying to take the the attention away from like black folks and as usually being pushed like really conservative black people, and like you know, the kind of people who they have a lot of influence with. You know, they'll see like mainstream like in the VCP here in Portland, who has always been tight with the mayor's office, really pushing that narrative hard, and lots of other folks you know,

coming up to back them up. Yeah. So I guess one thing that I've also seen is that there's this conflation of like you know, they'll say like downtown is deserted because of these protests because all the violence, but downtown is deserted because of the pandemic and also despite the plague and a record number of businesses shutting down due to COVID downtown Portland is unfortunately quite active at

the moment. It is in fact not destroyed nor taking enough appropriate COVID precautions, you know, And that's not like that's like the most disingenuous thing anyone could possibly say. And it's so it seems so patently obvious that it's like, you know, like a red herring, but then people are still like buying into it and to a certain degreer, like echoing that sentiment, and it's just this is not

the case. And it's like and there's also this like desire for for them to like they kind of say that it's all white anarchists, but there's no way to that for you to prove that because most of the people who are doing this show are all blocked up.

And it's like so there's also this like kind of subtext that they what they really want for these people, They want to know who these people are, you know, partially to like like you know, gratify themselves are trying to be right, but also just so the fucking cops from now them. You know. It's like it's like undercurrent of like respectability, like if you know, they really cared, they would like show their faces or something like that,

like I don't know. The vast majority of Portland protesters do not partake in any political violence or even vandalism, even at the riots that end in destruction and violence. At almost every one of these protests, physical violence is started and further escalated by law enforcement. Entire crowds get

punished for the actions of a few individuals. The more rare alternative to this is quote unquote targeted arrests, that, despite its name, are often not actually targeted at specific individuals and instead just end up targeting people wearing black clothes and those that don't run away fast enough from riot cops. The people arrested in these targeted arrests often get charged with a mix of small misdemeanors and sometimes agregious felonies, most of which end up getting dropped due

to lack of evidence. When the arrests are specifically targeted, it's usually for such quote unquote crimes as standing and protesting on the driveway of the Ice building at one am. The validity of property destruction has faced a lot of criticism from pundance, politicians and even many protesters. For the summer of twenty there was actually very little property destruction save for the first riot night, as people were mostly trying to repeat the occupy the areas around boarded up

police buildings. But as the summer turned into fall and tactics evolved alongside the smaller crowd sizes, broken windows became more common. Critics say that it is not strategic because it does not help grow the movement, gain public support, or by itself be enough pressure for instituting change. That much is arguably true, but that assumes those were the goals of the action in the first place, which is

usually not true. In a recent interview, local political consultant and former activist Gregory McKelvey said this about the purpose of vandalism such as breaking windows. Quote, Honestly, I think in some cases the goal has been explicitly revenge for night after night of tear gas beatings, disparate policing and

PPBS protection of the ice detention centers. However, again, we must put ourselves in the minds as someone who probably rightfully believes the world is ending, or at a minimum is on the brink of being unrecognizable with incredible amounts of death, pain, and climate chaos. If the world is ending, some people are going to act like it. It's amazing to me that liberal Democrats really do believe that we are on the brink of something like armageddon and then

are shocked that some people behave like it. What did you picture armageddon to look like? Public testimony unquote vandalism like graffitia, breaking windows also serves as a demanding of attention, while also symbolizing a direct attack on racism, class divides, capitalism, or this datus quote itself. For years, people have tried

just asking nicely. Over the summer here in Portland, there were thousands of people peacefully demanding a fifty million dollar budget cut from p PPS two hundred and forty five million dollar budget to then reinvesting community services. The minus fifty million would bring the police budget down closer to their twenty sixteen budget of only a hundred and ninety million.

Other demands include wholly abolishing and replacing the Portland Police Bureau, dropping all charges for civil rights protesters, and that Mayor Ted Wheeler resigned with none of those demands meant, and politicians all but ignoring the peaceful demonstrations. People are angry, so windows get broken, and this seems to be the only thing that gets attention anymore and keeps the dialogue

about police violence active. Here's Tristan again. That's like I said, I definitely feel like that kind of like vandalism should be engaged with and like, uh, let's say a productive kind of way. I don't necessarily think it's wrong, but if it if you can't see, yeah, this is this is a hard depart because I mean, it's totally valid

to be able to speak madness smash it. And I guess in terms of like small businesses, um, I mean, well I guess, okay, so one way that it's if I think fully justified even if it is like a small business, if they're like cop friendly, if they're like cop adjacent, and like if they got like a Blue Lives matter of fighting the window, like gloves off, I

don't give a ship. But you know, if it's just like a random business, like probably don't you know, because I mean, the cops are gonna they're gonna come at you anyway, you know, whether you like break a window or like you know, burn a cop car, right, they're gonna arrest you. And they're probably arrest you even if

you don't do that. And so it's really just a matter of like, which of those two acts is actually going to like materially deprived the police of the ability need commit for Here's another quote from Gregory in his recent interview at the will Emit Week quote for generations like mine and the one after. Gregory is in his

late twenties. By the way, we have been told our entire lives that the world is about to end if nothing is done immediately, and that all of the evils of our world, climate, chaos, racism, the ills of capitalism, and more are all inexplicably linked. In my mind and in the minds of protesters, these things are objectively true. So if the young person has told the world is ending and then told to sign up to testify or go vote, that does not meet the urgency of the moment.

Destruction is a natural reaction to feeling desperate, helpless, and an imminent doom. The solution to all this would involve actually addressing the legitimate issues that are killing us all with the urgency that's necessary. The politicians who are acting like everything is fine as the world literally burns, or say they care about these issues but don't actually do anything to fundamentally to fix them are only making the

problems worse and people's desperation worse. And then when both liberals and conservatives alike make more of a fuss about a broken Starbucks window than the literally hundreds of people beaten and gassed in the streets by the cops afterwards, that only further proves the protesters point. We pro it would be remiss to talk about tactics without mentioning the influence Hong Kong's protests have had on the Portland Uprising

and BLM protests in general. The militant protests in Hong Kong sent shock waves across the world months before the COVID pandemic. Hong Kong protesters used tennis, rackets and umbrellas to deflect police projectiles, and traffic cones and water bottles to contain and diffused here gas grenades. All of these tactics were adapted at various points throughout the Portland protests.

At a PPB press conference back in July, the Deputy Chief featured an infographic describing the different rules protesters took up in the Hong Kong uprising. P PB also tweeted out the graphs saying, quote, we have seen all of this demonstrations in Portland, unquote knowingly or unknowingly, the PPB had aligned themselves with the Hong Kong police and their crackdown on the Hong Kong protests, arguably the most widely accepted and praise protest movement of the last decade prior

to the George Floyd protests. Here's Deputy Chief Chris Davis introducing the graphic at his July eight press conference. So now I want to talk just a little bit about some of the in in broader terms, some of the tactics that we're saying. We'll make this available as a PDF for you. This is not sacred information here. This we got this off the internet. Um, this picture popped up a lot on social media and on the internet right as events began. I'm not sure exactly what the

origin of this is. We're still working on trying to figure this out. But this is not our diagram. We got this off of off of the internet. The graphic that he showed was originally based on the Hong Kong protests and designed to assist protesters. It outlines the anatomy of a typical protest laying out the different protest rules that people can take on to achieve their goals. It's important to note that one person doesn't need to be

stuck with a single purpose for one day. The rules people take up and the actions they do can be semi fluid. The graphic gave each of these rules kind of silly names and well designed based on a different struggle. Each of these rules was represented in some form in Portland. First, our support rules that people can do from home if

they are unable to attend in person. These include graphic designers who make posters, banners, and infographics, and people who work online comms listening to police scanners and signaled usting information about police activity and location from on the ground sources and then distributing the information via apps like Telegram, Signal and Twitter. Moving on to at the actual protest in the back, barricaders people who build barricades out of

usually found objects. In Portland, we've seen these have two main purposes. One to help prevent vehicular attacks on the crowd and too quickly erect obstacles as police are chasing the crowd to hopefully slow the police down. Up Next, medics and people who help with tear gas or pepper spray exposure. Medics all have different skill ranges, and in Portland have had to deal with minor medical issues like tear gas, but also broken bones, head trauma, seizures, and

gunshot wounds. They often stay towards the back of a protest to both have a safe place for treatment and in cases where an ambiliance has to be called in closer to the middle. We have people that were playfully referred to in the Hong Kong graphic as fire squads and range soldiers. Fire squads are protesters who used water and traffic cones to suppress and extinguished tear gas canisters. Portland police even began collecting and confiscating city traffic cones

so that they wouldn't be used this way. Another anti tier gas measure we've seen is simply heat resistant gloves used to chuck tear gas back at cops or away from crowds. Hockey sticks and lacrosse sticks have also been used to relocate tear gas canisters. During the Fed War, this group also came to include people with leafblowers who did a really good job at keeping gas at bay.

Range soldiers are protesters who throw water bottles, paint, balloons, and other random trash to help inhibit police from advancing beside them are light mages and fire mages. Light mages use lasers and flashlights to obstruct surveillance cameras, drones, and stop police from being able to aim and identify protesters.

While effective when used in the large numbers seen in the Hong Kong protests, isolated lasers did very little to obscure cameras or disrupt police surveillance, although the FEDS and PPB officers did report some ice strain due to the laser targeting. Portland police have even described being quote unquote struck with objects including lasers. For example here in this audio courtesy of local street reporter Jasper Florence, jets, models,

borders and lasers. These objects are hard and traveling at high rates of speed. With these strike officers inter believed to be coming up shots. Fire mages are protesters who are prepared to set fires. Often these are two barricades

and dumpsters. Although Portland's months of protests saw extensive use of fireworks and at least four molotov cocktails, half of which actually hit fellow protesters, Thankfully, no one was permanently injured by Molotov's in Portland during now closer to the front piece the protesters who make up the bulk of any marcher action and could also include people who don't want to fight but join hand in hand with the

front liners and conservist human shields. During the fight with the federal forces, thousands of Portlanders made up of the peaceful crowds, while the Wall of Moms acted as a frontline, often protecting people who were throwing tear gas canisters back at the Feds. Another role showcased on the graphic is what's referred to as a flag bearer. Their job is to signal and warn when riot police are approaching. In Hong Kong this was done via flags and signs, and

in Portland this was done by someone with a sports whistle. Then, of course we have front liners people up at the front, some ready to take various direct action and others with umbrellas to guard against projectiles and cameras. And then at the very front, shield soldiers or shield bearers with shields made out of foam would or sometimes umbrellas. In July,

Portland got pretty famous for its shield wall. But like everything else, needs to be a tactic that's carefully applied under certain conditions, or it can actually be a hindrance. In theory, shield walls serve two main purposes to deflect against projectiles and offer a first line of defense from

charging enemies or people attacking with batons. Shields are effective at stop immunition fire, but when facing bullrushes, shields are grabbed by police and used to gain leverage on protesters to push them onto the ground or destabilize them so

they can be attacked and arrested. One element of a truly effective shield wall, whether you're advancing or simply holding your ground, is people behind the shield wall throwing projectiles, because often merely a shield wall alone isn't enough to deter people, which is why when law enforcement brings out their shields, they also have people behind them shooting grenades

to your gas at pepper balls. Another advantage of the shield wall projectile combo is that shields can be used to visually obstruct the police from seeing who is throwing objects, making them targeted arrests more difficult. But you better be confident in your throw or you might hit your friends.

Although even having a shield in the first place makes you more of a target for arrests, and if you touch an officer with your shield, let's say, by an officer charging directly at you at full speed, you can get charged with assaulting a police officer. Probably the most effective shield wall we've seen in Portland was not used against the PPB or the Feds, but the Proud Boys

and other street fascists. On August two, all these different elements came together in a rare instance, a strong, tight, interlocking network of shields with support from behind, enough to stop incoming attackers and folks behind the wall throwing rocks, water bottles, and fireworks. Altogether, it was enough to break

the far rights more disorganized and individualistic shield wall. And also, of course, the Proud Boys don't have arresting powers, so people are more free to push back with their shields. Other consideration for shields depend on what your objective is and what tactics do you use to achieve that objective. In the fall, as crowds thinned and protests began to move faster, the large, bulky shields were largely abandoned by some protesters in favor of umbrellas. Shields can be heavy

and awkward to move with. Plus there's getting the shield to the action, carrying it around, and then figuring out what you want to do with it afterwards. These are all added considerations, particularly if you want to leave a protest more covertly. As great as it may be to have a wooden, foam or plastic shield in the moment as you're deflecting grenades or pushing off someone, it may not be worth all those extra tradeoffs, especially if an

umbrella can suffice in your immunitions shielding needs. Umbrellas are more of a multi use tool that can adapt to different situations and even be concealable, especially collapsible ones. While not as sturdy as a shield, umbrellas are generally less suspicious than huge wooden shields. A reinforced banner can also provide some protection from unitions while also sending out a message. However, some places have legal restrictions on what banners can be

made of. Throughout the summer, nightly actions focused on direct confrontation, with police often returning to repeatedly confront the same riot line. By August, while protest tactics remained largely unchanged, the Portland police tactics began to change PPB alternated between knights of brutal bul rushes and physical violence with only few arrests, and other knights where they conducted mass arrests of entire crowds. There are By fall, smaller crowd sizes and less frequent

actions required protesters to change up tactics as well. Repeated direct confrontation with riot lines was in many ways a habit picked up from the days of mass mobilization at the fence, and such confrontations took arrests for granted. Protesters

were being treated as disposable. When Portland had been the focus of national news, facing down police lines reliably generated front page coverage of police brutality, But by early fall Portland was no longer the focus of attention, and over time the shock and awe of footage showcasing police brutality

wears off, even as people keep getting hurt. By October, nighttime actions began to involve smaller crowds of people on Black Block smashing the windows of banks, real estate firms, and Starbucks coffee shops and then attempting to vanish into the night. These actions raised familiar objections from the more moderate sectors of the movement. And fit the right wing

narrative of the destructive antifa boogeyman. But as we touched on earlier, these actions were not to gain good optics, but instead to vent frustration that the previous demands for change had not been met and to create an economic cost for the city in maintaining the status quo. These marches echoed the black block snake marches of the nineties anti globalization movement, and to a lesser extent, the b

water mantra of the Hong Kong protests. Though in Hong Kong crowds routinely targeted civil infrastructure, this shift in tactics resulted in less arrests on average. The smaller crowd size made the diverse rules the larger demonstrations impossible, and the prevalence of vandalism meant that those who were arrested could

face some harsher charges. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has admitted to the difficulty of combating such attack and disappear actions, saying, quote, they pop up wearing black from head to toe, They go down streets relatively quickly, then they disappear into the wind. Those tactics have evolved to agree where we now find the law enforcement tools we have in place are dated. Since the summer of seventeen, the image of black clad

Antifa militants has loomed large in the nation's imagination. The garb, which Wheeler describes as black from head to toe, is of course black. Block counter surveillance tactic, which originated in Europe in the nineteen eighties and was first popularized in

the United States during the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. Traditionally, block serves to protect the identity of individuals involved in militant action, and people in block provide a defensive front line in larger protests, specifically in confrontations with police and the far right. Theoretically, blocks should make it difficult to

identify a wars gender, race, and age. This has led to activists and block being glossed over as young white anarchists, which Costa takes issues with people keep hearing that and believing in it does kiss off some people of color to hear that, but it's not true. There are there's plenty of people of color that are in block, and there's plenty of people in color. I would say the only people that are the main people that whose ideas

are listened to are people of color. Given the prevalence of both CCTV and phone cameras in protest settings, even the small details can be uniquely identifying. At a Seattle made, a action in one activist was ultimately identified by his shoes. As such, modern block often includes removing logos and other recognizable elements from clothing. This also means that moral patches or more tactical looking gear can also be used to identify the wear. Block is a tactic, not an organization,

uniform or identity. Here's an indigenous participant in the Wall of Moms describing how she shifted from black block as the protests continued. Yeah, I show up in block. I just like started just I just went out with like a shirt and a yellow shirt and some like black pants. And now I'm like cool block, like with everything. I have a bulletproof stuff I was provided to me. Um. Yeah, so, and transition has been crazy just a small amount of

lens yeah so. Um It's just I'm really big on being autonomous, um and not really having any leaders or things like that, and um, as I just want to be another face in the crowd. I don't and I don't I want to be unrecognizable. UM, so I think that like that's by block block is so important, and also don't want to be targeted UM, and I want to be able to like protect other people around me.

It's my responsibility to make sure that, UM, I am unrecognizable to like my other protesters and my friends, because if something happens to me, um, you know, one wrong move or getting docks or something like that can really affect everyone around me. So that's why it was really

important for me to kind of transition into a block block. UM. I've just been seeing so many of my friends and comrades just kind of like getting docs, um, just being recognized by like small things, even if they're in block blox. So UM, it's just it's I just feel like it's my responsibility. If I'm going to be out there, then I need to be um like unnoticeable or unrecognizable. For obvious reasons, block is only protective in groups and draws

the attention of law enforce mint. Another aspect of wearing block is bringing extra clothes and figuring out when and where you should take off your black block or d block, as you probably don't want to get snatched up and arrested while leaving. In action in Portland on January one, people were arrested on a sidewalk after a protest many blocks away just because they were still wearing black block and in doing so much the supposed description of people

who vandalized a building I also wearing black clothes. Lots of people actually wear normal clothes under their block, making d blocking a little easier, but people still need to choose a time and discrete place to take off their black outer garments. Besides shields, umbrellas and block, the other gear people have acquired and brought to the protests also helped set Portland apart. James from Portland Action Medics describes how the gear their organization provided mirror the evolution of

the movement. The summer got really really wild and um, you know, first we we we had respirators, some of us who are more seasoned protestmetics. Um, but they weren't widely used because the thing about tear gases, like if there's just a little bit of it, you can just walk away and like it will burn your eyes, but like if you just go down wind or upwind, but it's fine most of the time. But that's not true if they're using extraordinary quantities of it such that entire

parks are just full of gas. Right. UM. So we went from the situation where UM, respirators were kind of this niche like gear head thing to an absolute necessity, basically overnight. UM. And then we learned a lot about what kind of cartridges filter out COVID versus what kind of cartridges filter out tear gas, and how to combine them with each other. And then we were like making little like tear gas canister snack packs for people that are like these sandwich bags contain both together and you

should just plug them right in. We preassembled them for you. Here's your gas mask. And then I was like, well, what if we get full face gas masks that have included ice shields. Um, that should probably happen because we're in a pandemic. Portland Action Metics and others distributed hundreds of respirators and began using three D printers to make gas masks inserts for eyeglasses, as glasses are notoriously incompatible

with full face masks. As police violence continued and violence from the far right escalated, James says, additional gear became necessary. I think it has mostly been in response to um far right fighters coming into Portland that we have really been um a lot more worried about gunshots intentionally being fired at people, potentially in a mass way. Um. You know, like all police come with guns and so that's always

a possibility. But like we have yet. We saw some brandnshing of firearms at people from the Feds over the summer, but we have yet to my knowledge to see police fire live rounds on protesters. Um. But the far right like constantly run the round of the internet saying they're going to shoot us just every day. And so you know, depending on how seriously take um, it's reasonable to prepare for sutras thing and so um, especially over the summer

as the rhetoric from the far right increased in extremeness. UM. Plus the I mean basically, like someone's firing projectiles at crowd inscriminately, then it makes sense to wear a helmet NFS, regardless of who those people are. UM, And it's hard to distincue it doesn't matter whether it's a cop or a fascist that is not wearing uniform doing that, right. Um. So there's that like throughout the summer, or people were like I need ballistics. I need heavier ballistics. I need

a helmet, I need a better helmet. I need goggles. I need better goggles. I need shadow proof goggles because we've got seeing people just get really badly fucked up by projectiles. Um, so there was that. But then yes, specifically when it comes to gunshot wounds, we did a lot of preparations, especially binding out to the election, frankly, because the rhetoric about what people wanted to do was really scary, and it's it's always impossible basically to tell

how seriously to take these people. Other necessary gear is ear protection for flash bangs. This can be little film ear plugs or more bulky noise canceling headphones. Air protection became very important during the Fed War, as flash banks from the Feds are way more powerful and damaging than the ones Portland police use. Here's Donovan Smith tear gas. It was used almost every night and the more than one days of protests in Portland, both by local police

and then repped up again during the federal occupation. But what exactly was this so called gas that was filling the streets of Portland each night anyways? Well, turns out it's a wartime chemical band. By the nine Geneva Convention following the First World War, a protocol and nixing the use of poisonous gases during warfare was adopted, including some

lethal compounds like chlorine and hydrogen gas. And while its name sounds like something that would make you feel similar to cutting up onions at dinner, a deeper look into its true effects began to open up a much clearer picture on why it's been banned as a tool of warfare for decades. Turns out, tear gas isn't even a gas at all. It's sort of a chemical explosion, one where a chemical powder gets heated up really quick and mixed with the solvent and finally released as an aerosaw

and waila tear gas. It's sole purpose from there is to induce pain. Dr Anita Randolph explains its effects here. She let a research paper on the effects of tear gas, commissioned by Don't Shoot Portland's publish in late June, just weeks after the uprisings begin. Tear gas is actually a solid um, that's why they're packed in that canister um. So there's a few chemical reactions that have to happen

to convert it to a gas like substance. So when you're out there and you're getting tear gas, you know, it's kind of like this white mist or white powder everywhere. Um. And that's because it has to be heated up to be able to um be dispersed, right, and then once it disperse, you have to zig and then it just

allows it to spread over a larger radius. I think in the paper UM, from our research, we showed that one canister tear gas can reach like a four squared radius, which is like a one loop around a track, which is law cards right, because once you stretch it out, that's a that's a lot of areas that it can cover. Um. And it's also like very potent to penetrate glass. Right. So that's why people were dressing in layers too. Right.

Even me, I was like, oh man, when I learned that, I was like dressing in layers, you know, people getting tear gas or like shedding layers outside because it just it just goes through and it just wants it's on your skin, especially when you're sweating and those glands are open. It's just very painful. UM. I can honestly say I don't I don't. I'm not too motivated to get tear gass.

The pain isn't just exclusive to humans. Similar reactions are caused in animals too, even causing death at certain levels of the exposure. A twenty nineteen protests in Hong Kong saw a nearby veterinary clinic forced to evacuate all its feline patients after police began shooting the so called riot control agents into the crowd of nearby demonstrators. Not all the cats could be moved in time, though in one case, an eighteen month year old cat reportedly began clawing at

its eyes after inhaling the gas. While there's little documentation on how tear gas affected the critters of Portland's they certainly wore a feature of the protests, with one standout being a three hundred and fifty pound llama named Caesar. His owner, a Central Oregan man, says he bought Caesar to the demonstrations to boost morale and would quickly depart with him when munitions began sounding off. And while Caesar went unscathed, we cannot say the same with certainty for

all our other furry friends. Another possible victim of Portland's bouts of chemical warfare was one of the city's pride and joys its environment. Early in the protests, concerned eyes turned towards the Lambt River, the de facto divider between

the city's east and west side. The thirteenth largest north flowing river in the United States, The will LAMTT also shares the distinction of being a Superfund site, meaning it's been pegged by the FEDS as one of the most toxic sites in the entire country and not so distant relic of the heavy industrial activity, particularly along a ten mile stretch spanning from the Burnside Bridge to Sylvie's Island and short the bollamt is no stranger to abuse, but some began to wonder if all the cs gas and

pepper spray runoff was furthering those harms as clean up crewise powerwashed the residue into storm drains leading to the river. The city's Bureau of Environmental Services began vacuuming tear gas residue from the drains surrounding the downtown Justice Center in August during the FED occupation to prevent any toxic carms.

But despite a wealth of research on the effects of tear gas, little seemed to be known on both its short and long term effects on the environment, so the move came as a bit of a preventative shot in the dark. According to the Bureau. At the very least, the gas was an illegal discharge as no other substances besides rain water are allowed down the drains. Morgan from the Mutual a protest clean up group Team Raccoon, so they could feel the remnants in the air returning to

ground Zerial every morning. Basically, we we got a little bit of money from Mutually donations and we were wondering what because part cleans are pretty low cost, you know, trash bags, trash grabbers, doesn't cost a lot of money to maintain that. So we were wondering, like, what do we do with this money that will really help our community. And we were noticing the air quality in Loudsdale and Chapman getting worse and worse and worse because of the

tear gas and the chemical munitions every night. Even just walking through there during the day, you wanted to put your respirator on. At the end of July, the move led to a mass mobilization of respirators and on the ground research into the gas Morgan continues, so we we're connected to some researchers who wanted to keep a certain level anonymity, and we decided the best way to do

that was through us. We could accept filters from the protest community, and we could give them to the researchers. The researchers could conduct their studies and the privacy that they want, and we could use mutual aid money to facilitate that. Meanwhile, city bureaucrats began running their own tests on the sediments collected from the nearby drains to test for the primary chemicals associated with tear gas, hexa villa, chrarium,

pe joliot, barium, and sinai. The following month, the Barreau released its finding, saying that while there were higher levels of toxins at the source of the storm drains, by the time they hit the river levels were pretty much normal. The results only accounted for the August round of chemicals found in the river. B As officials insisted, however, that the testing was thorough as an accounted for the build up of chemicals that have been deployed since of George

b uprisings in late May. This didn't stop five environmental groups from teaming up to launch a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, alleging they were out of compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act by not conducting an assessment on the impacts of their gas ahead of using it, breaking federal law. Represented by the a c l U, the group seeked a complete savage and federal usage of tear gas. DHS ended up pulling out before the ruling

was made, but the question continued to loom. What exactly were the long term effects of tear gas. It's a question that's further complicated when considering the findings of Chemical Weapons Research Conservatorium, who say during the FEDS occupation, a mix of CS gas and toxic chemical smoke grenades made

Hexa chlor thane or HC gas. HC is a toxic compound band by the US military for its severe health effects, but was deployed repeatedly by federal agents against the people of Portland's easily identifiable by the way the canisters glow red, continuously spouting dents opaque smoke for a minute or more. Juniper Seminists, who helped lead the research team, explains its effects here. Um I saw a number of people that had basically chemical burns, the chemical miss burns UM that

they had never had with other gases. UM, the UH stomach set of symptoms. So if you ingest it, which you would do through gulping UM or just having your mouth I'll been walking through gas UM, that will cause vomiting, UM, nausea, UM, and that whole kind of set of symptoms. Because your body wants knows that zinc is bad, it wants it out UM in your lungs. However, UM, what happens is UM zinc chloride is really corrosive because of the chlorine.

Among the complications, a number of protesters reported having prolonged regular menstal cycles, sometimes bleeding for weeks after exposure to the gas. Oregon Public Broadcasting and spoke with twenty six people attended the protests and self reported changes in their bodies. Effects reported included trans people who would cease taking testosterone shots, beginning to menstruate again. Others reported pain so uncomfortable they had to take a trip to the hospital and one

month alone. Others reported multiple cycles for a long time, especially right now with COVID. We it's it's kind of hard to tweez out. If somebody has a long term symptom that's gonna linger for a while. I think due to the pandemic, it's going to confound a lot of these things, a lot more. Is gonna make it a lot more difficult to tweez out one from the other definitively, you know. Um, But I do think it needs to be investigated. I hope people don't forget about it, especially

what the unhoused. You know, Portland has a really high number of unhoused individuals, and my heart broke for them, like every day because you know, we back up and go home, but you know, we're we're in their space essentially. So if it's getting tear gas every single night constantly, they're actually the ones that's getting exposed the most and have the highest frequacy of exposure. Um. But for whatever reason, it's not too many people advocating for them in this space.

So I just really wanted to throw that out there. Well, no definitive links have been made yet between tear gas and the regular cycles. The string of complaints made for yet another worry as protesters hit the front lines each night, facing off with the police force armed with the band war chemical whose true effects may not be known for

years to come. About a week after George Floyd's murder, Don't Shoot Portland's lost a class action lawsuit against the City of Portland's alleging indiscriminate use of tear gas an excessive force at the hands of the Portland Police Bureau. Shortly thereafter, U S District Judge Marco Hernandez ruled in their favor, placing a two week restraining order on the bureau until further court ruling. However, there was a catch. In his ten page ruling, the judge wrote the following quote.

In addition, tear gas you shall be limited to situations in which the lives are safety of the public or the police are at risk. This includes the lives and safety of those housed at the Justice Center. Tear gas shall not be used to disperse crowds where there's little or no risk of injury. End quote. That little or no risk left a lot up to interpretation for the

Portland Police Bureau. Governor k Brown signed a bill that had banned tear gas following Hernandez's ruling that followed similar directors in July, tear gas was banned only into the police declare riot loudly. Police had already been loosing their existing directors for when and when not to use tear gas. Up until then, the only thing preventing thousands from being draped in wartime chemicals was officers on the ground declaring

the gatherer a quote unlawful assembly. After that, you'd have to hear something like this a few times, the youth of tear gas, crowd control agent of or impact button. Once this request for dispersal was given over the loudspeaker a few times, it was up to the incident commander to give the green light on firing the gas into the crowd. After the so called temporary band, things pretty much continued to follow this pattern from the police chief

to the mayor. Officials at the city continued to argue that tear gas was a key tool, and the cops arsenal to this first protesters, but despite the questionable use of ports preaching the First Amendment, the gas often encroached on those who weren't even on the front lines of the demonstrations. Tear gases grip loomed across the city, and in the case of Demesia Smith, it followed her family home and all of a sudden they've seen flashing lights and looked outside and the whole p p A building

was lined with riot officers. And uh, the last time we had protested, I don't remember the exact day. We were downtown and it was the day it made news that the police had tear gas. Like, um, there was a group of protesters that weren't a part of like a group of three thousand people, but the police like tear gas everybody was that was down there. My son was caught in the middle of that. So he's like

already been like on edge about police. So he called me freaking out that the riot police were all front of the building, in front of my mom's house, and he was like crying, like hysterically, like he didn't know what was going to happen, and he was just telling me to be careful. And there was no protesters. There was just old police, but like their presence I had

him freaked out and crying. So I'm leaving work and when I come home, so I can't park there, can't even get through to there because at that time, now the protesters have made it to the p p A building as well as the riot officers. So I'm like circling around, circling around, and I couldn't park anywhere close enough. So I parked my car at home and walked all the way through because I'm trying to get to my kid. So I'm walking through and uh, everybody, all of a sudden,

you just start seeing smoke whatnot. But again I'm in mom mode and like, that's my house. And again I already the police aren't. I've just witnessed the police not acting right there in protests. Are like no, they're trying to push me back, and I'm like, I've lived right here. You guys can see my ID. One days in, crowds continued to show up, and cops continued to guess. To Mr. Ender lives just off the Ventura Park in East Lane.

On a hundred night of protests, he found his neighborhood blanketed in tear gas and I was like, oh jeez. So then at that point, we make our way past tear gas again and uh basically climbed our little fence and jump over that to get inside our house and make sure all the windows were closed, and then we put towels under the the two kids rooms. I mean, we have a at that point. We had a one month old child, two month old child, and a two year old child, and uh, it's incredibly scary to have

tear gas deployed. Um. It was more than one canister of tear gas that was deployed in front of our house. Um, and you know have anywhere to go, So the police are on all sides of my house. Um, there's loud speakers, UM, loud noises, Uh, tear gas being deployed. I mean the streaming from my house was a war zone. Um. The police turned it into a war zone. And the response was over the top. Um it was, in my opinion,

meant to chill speech. And UM. I mean we don't have gas mass in our house, and they don't make a gas mask for a two month old child, and so our options is limited. I mean it's if it was a private individual doing this, I could defend my house. UM, but I don't have that luxury when it's the government doing it. A member of Team Raccoon have been cleaning up trash and spent munitions at protests throughout the summer. After the ongoing gassing of neighborhoods, they shifted to supplying

families with respirators for their children. What we found was that the best situation was three M respirator for ages about seven and up and younger than that. What we do is we get something called the Bart system, which is a pressure positive hood that also has a straw and a sippy cup, and it's made for young children. And the pressure positive hood helps so they don't have

to have anything strapped to their face. And UM, the motor keeps it keeps filtered air moving through the hood, so it never um, it never stops moving out and that's how they keep the tear gas away from children. For infants, we weren't really able to find something that was super affordable and um easy to get, So for infants we basically suggest, UM what people do when UM they are trying to keep tear gas out of their homes,

roll up a towel and put it under the door. UM. Try to get as far away from windows or any exit points as possible if you need to evac, you know, try to make sure that you get too safe air as quickly as possible. But there aren't a lot of answers when you're talking about infant impact and tear gas or prevention from getting tear gas in infants lungs. As the smoke from September wildfire settled over, Portland's Mayor Wheeler issued a ban on CS gas. Wheeler's police bureau pushed back.

Both the police chief and their union had publicly rallied against him, with the Portland Police Association launching a full on petition railing against the band. Then the smoke cleared. Just days after Wheeler's ban, a familiar scene formed outside the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Building, with calls by protesters to abolish ICE. A group of about a hundred gathered outside the facility and were met not by PPB but federal agents shortly after nightfall tear gas and sued alongside

pellets and smoke bombs. Wheeler and Police chief level were quick to announce that their bureau wasn't responsible for the night's chaos, which ended with nearly a dozen arrests. Protests continued in much this way in the days following the wild fires, direct actions around town at night drawing out a few dozen people who would be met with police force and arrests, and while the police force had yet to cease the use of tear gas, had come to

a halt since the mayor's ban. In the weeks leading up to the election, much of the city's downtown corps was boarded up, businesses feared of broken windows. At the local level, an unpopular mayor and police commissioner was set up for re election, with many constituents divided over whether or not to vote for his self described every day Antifa opponents Sarah Yanerone and a community led ride in campaign for Don't Shoot Portland's founder Teresa Rayford, who came

in third in the primaries. This and other key council races had many on edge for the future of the city. On top of that, the decidedly blue Portland, which had just seen a fatal clash of Trump caravans and BLM protesters, waited to see if the forty five president who just occupied the city would occupy the seat for four more years.

Wheeler eaked out a win against his opponents, receiving less than the combined votes of Yann Eronne and the riding's but enough to secure his seat again to the lament of many activists. Trump lost to Biden. Protests ensued later that November. Yet another tear gas related suit was filed,

this time by inmates of the Justice Center. While the use of gas had come to a halt, their class action suit turned its finger at the Moultnoma County Sheriff's office, alleging that from the first day of the protests, those caged at the Justice Center were left to suffer as gas from the outside seeped into their cells. More than three inmates joined in the suit, many of them had

yet to be convicted and were awaiting trial. The suit described a number of alleged incidents of inmates coughing, wheezing, and kneeling over in agony in the weeks of protest. They were stuck in their cells, and some repeated a familiar refrain, one that sparked global uprisings, I can't breathe. Tear gas continues to be a tool used by most

urban police departments across the country. The nightly chemical warfare that police enacted on Portland streets, along with other munitions, turned the city both into a battlefield and a testing ground. The true mental, physical, and environmental effects of the gassing may not be realized for years to come, but from Portland to Hong Kong, one thing remains clear. While protest tactics may adapt over the years, the response of governments

remains largely the same, suppress and silence dissent. Portland's continued to push back imperfectly, but with more skill. Some broke windows, while others simply claim their streets. Grabbed a bullhorn for the first time and demanded to all who could hear

that without justice, there would be no peace. From optics to effectiveness, some on the so called left were split on which roads best aided in the liberation of black lives, and while diversity of tactics got sticky at times, many will argue that the norm most protesters rail against is more insufferable. We quoted Malcolm X at the beginning of this episode. One of the most popular phrases he's known

for is by any means necessary. As we reflect on the lessons of the ongoing movement for Black lives and the months of protests that took over Portland, will leave you with a more full version of that quote he gave during a speech at the founding of the Organization

of Afro American Unity in nineteen sixty four. We declare our right on this earth to be a human being, to be respected as a human being to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary. Last episode, you may remember us speaking with junior perseminists about chemical communitions used by the FEDS and local law enforcement during the protests. We wanted to offer a correction about some of the

statements issued during that last episode. Juniper Sminis is in fact Dr Juni per Siminus, with fifteen years under their bill as a quantitative conservation biologists and the research we said they helped lead with chemical weapons research Concertorium on hex chlorothane gas or HC gas, there is so much as help lead, but in fact spearheaded the effort with

the assistance of some volunteers. There's in fact a why ranging array of research and science regarding HC gas an tear gas out in the world, some dating bad decades, but even today researchers continue to unearth more understanding about what the real impacts of these chemicals are on humans, animals in wildlife, and the environment at large. Another thing is scientists are sort of constant skeptics. So when we say that no definitive links have been drawn when it

comes to research, especially in the world of science. It's almost an oxymoronic statement. Everything can be challenged to gain better understandings of the floating rock we live on and everything else beyond it. What we do know for sure is that the countless munitions unlesha on Portland's left, scores of protesters ailing as scientists continue to unearth new research on these chemicals. The Uprising team would like to offer our apology for the errors reported in that last episode.

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