The Battle of July 4th

isn't experience in and of itself. I've been to war zones on two continents. I've been shot at, and I've been shelled once, and I can honestly say that being bul rushed by dozens of armored policemen ranks as among the most frightening things I've ever experienced. It's certainly less lethal than coming under sniper fire, but there's something uncontrollably panic inducing about being chased by a wall of angry

men who want to harm you. The lizard part of your brain starts firing, panic rises up in the primal hinterlands of your brain. If you aren't careful, it takes over completely. And even if you do stay in control the adrenaline coursing through your system. It'll make your handshake, It'll blur the parts of your mind to make coherent

thought possible. Portland protesters learned a lot through the month of June, but one thing they didn't quite figure out was how to stand up against a charging riot line. They did learn a lot of other valuable things, though, Tear gas went from something that instantly dispersed crowds to

more of a moderate annoyance. Some of this was a product of people acquiring gas masks and respirators, but more of it had to do with people learning how to treat gas injuries, how to put out or throw back smoking canisters, and most importantly, how not to panic while choking on poison. One major way this information spread in

the early days were live streams. Conundrum, A blind journalist who recorded soundscapes of the Portland riots recalls how she used live stream audio to train herself up before going out. And I had been, you know, since like the first week, helping out in ways I can sort of from behind the scenes constantly. It took until middle you know, because initially, when all this started going down, you know, here in Portland, I was like, how can I be involved? You know,

logic brain is going, Okay, Katie, you're blind. Not safe for you to go out there. You know, all of all of these reasons why blind person probably running through clouds of tear gas not not the greatest idea you've ever had. Um. And so it was like, Okay, Well, what are the other ways I can I can support the community at large and specific people who I know that are out there. Well, for one, I got that stimulus check and I didn't need it, so I'm like,

who needs gear? Um? So donating into different organizations that was one way that I could help very easily. In my position. I live by myself. I live like a student because I am a student and I yeah, um, also supporting friends that I had who were out on the ground, like sitting there watching all of the live streams and like following all of you guys that were

out there on the ground since day one. Like I'm sitting there up all night every night, eight nights a week because some number of my friends are out every night, right, And so as stuff gets started, I start pulling up

every stream that I could find. So, yeah, that was a lot of what I would be doing is having multiple live streams playing at the same time, like listening to the audio's Obviously, I can't see what's happening in the videos, so I mean I was not as effective as somebody who could actually see the pictures, obviously, and that tiny regard. I can't see the pictures people are

tweeting out or what's in them. But you know, me and some of my friends had some groups set up where I wasn't the only one doing this, and we would sort of share the information with each other first before passing it on to the people who were, you know, out and about, like, hey, guys, maybe stay away from Third and managed and there's reports of fascists in a truck with u S flags like don't go around, there's a guy with a gun, you know, stuff like that.

Once people were actually out on the ground getting tear gas and grenated and charged on a regular basis, they started coalescing into groups based on what they were particularly interested in doing to help out. For Chris and a number of his colleagues, that meant learning to work as a team of medics. This kid out a broken shoulder, um, and there's a bunch of people crowding around being like I'm medic, but I've only got water and band aids and stuff. Um. And I wandered up and I said, Hi,

my name's Chris. UM, I have triangle band just would you like one? And so I met a medic friend that way, and then I met all of their medic friends and it's like, well we should keep in contact. You guys have signaling made like a small signal group. Um. And then I started to meet other medics and like get their signal information and met other medics that we're

doing the same thing. And so we all kind of like everybody kind of met like five medics and all five medics new another five medics and so it all kind of um coalesced like that. UM. So there's a lot of independent medics. But really there are these medic groups, and within the internal communications that we have, we usually have like a few people like one or two people from each group. Like I'm with PAM. I know other medics that are with PAM that are in like uh

you know, in communication. Um. And then you know there's the e walks and we'll know some e walks and well if I can't get ahold of the walks, I know somebody you can. If I can't get ahold of rose hips, I know somebody you can. UM. And so we do all try and talk to each other. UM. We try and talk to each other on the day of to make sure that you know, like we're all on the same page because different medics sceptor styles UM.

And then another reason that's so important is because especially in emergency medicine UM, you're taught how to deal with like bio hazards, situations, you know, things where you need to triage things where there's a lot of patients at once, and there's a lot of people coming from different places to be medics, and you have to learn you know who's above you, who's below you, so that you're not stepping at each other's does and getting each other's way.

And so learning what everyone's scope of practices was very important. And that's just kind of a standard question that we ask. Now if you meet somebody that you haven't met, they're like, oh, medic would be like, oh hey, cool, my name's Chris. UM has trained as an m t uh, if you

don't mind me asking what's your scope of practice? Because sometimes there are people will be like, oh yeah, I've been taking care of my mom for like five years, but I have no formal training and be like, all right, cool, I'm gonna keep that in mind so that when something happens, you know, I don't ask someone like, hey, grab my sand's plant and mold it for me. I can be like, hey, hold my flashlight, guy, um. Or sometimes you know, we

know a lot of people get tear gas. Those people are really good because flushing eyes isn't hard, and I can teach somebody out the flush eyes, um, and that way, if we've got those people flushing eyes and then someone else has like a broken bone, I can deal with that. There were small emergent groups who brought shields, others who brought traffic cones and water jugs to douse tear gas, and others who showed up with food and protective gear

to hand out to protesters. A number of disabled activists who did not feel they could safely participate in toe to toe confrontations with riot lines, filled valuable logistic roles making sure that front liners had ample water, respirator filters, and food. Juniper was one of hundreds of people who took it upon themselves to see that the Portland protests were supplied with what they needed. I was able to UM feel like I could go and drop off supplies

like I have. You know, I am a middle class, upwardly mobile white person, UM, and I have some money, and there are people out on the front lines putting their bodies and live on the line. And so I was like, I'm gonna go give some snacks to people and get some water and just some other other protective equipment and things that I had that I knew could be useful. Other small groups helped coordinate aid and raise

attention for actions online. One of these organizations was pop Mob or Popular Mobilization, who formed early on in the Trump administration after a series of disastrous and bloody dueling rallies between fascist and anti fascist protesters in Portland. Pop Mob acted as a sort of unifying bridge for different local anti fascist groups, with a focus on getting the word out to large groups of what they called everyday

anti fascists. These were people who weren't hardcore activists but didn't want Nazis marching around their city when Portland's BLM movement took off, Though Effie Baum and their colleagues at pop Mob decided they should take a less visible support role, so mostly just retweeting things and then UM when people would share events with us, boosting those events or boosting different affinity groups that were involved in the nightly protests, and UM really just kind of providing a UM UH

basically a signal boost to the people that we're doing organizing UM and specifically like focusing only on trying to boost UM bipoc led efforts, especially given all of the conversation around UM white anarchists and UM you know, co opting the movement or the you know, media like to blame everything on white anarchists, which then takes away the autonomy and disempowers the people that were in fact organizing those events and the very real anger UM and justified

anger behind those events. And so we also did not want to UM contribute to that narrative in any way, shape or form. So we really made a very intest intentional efforts to UM operate exclusively in a supportive role. A lot of us were there UM many nights, and UM continue to go out many nights, but UM the organization as a whole did not have an organizational presence

as organizers. One of the you know, goals that we would you know, have is pushing back against kind of this like white supremisist culture that we have all that

we all participate in every day. And so that was one of the main reasons we did not want to take any kind of lead in the organizing is because it's one thing when we are coming out and organizing against jere like Joey Gibson and Patriot Prayer Um who you know, the proad Boys and those groups target a lot of different marginalized and vulnerable populations from you know, many different UM groups, and so in a sense you could look at it say that that the work is

similar UM. But at the same time, I think that it's important for the people who are most affected to be the voices that people are hearing, and especially because we've seen how much that the media has latched onto trying to discredit those voices by painting it as angry white anarchists. As the days and weeks wore on Portland, protesters grew hardened and increasingly effective at standing up to

police violence. Tear gas and grenades stopped working to disperse crowds, Pepper balls, little paintball style projectiles filled with mace and fired from a paintball gun. Likewise, lost their effectiveness As shields became more common, police bulrushes remained the most effective tactic for dispersing crowds, especially since by late June most of those crowds were quite small. Portland protesters started gathering on Telegram, an anonymous messaging app, in order to coordinate

and pass on intelligence. During events. People would warn each other of police charges in the presence of riot trucks. Before and after events, they would dissect their performance and discuss ways to improve. Near the end of June, they started talking about how protesters might form their own shield wall,

something that could stand up against police charges. Now, in between numerous knights of reporting on riots, my partner Elaine Kinchin, spent hours browsing through those conversations and watching is people worked out how to defend themselves from charging officers. I'm gonna throw you over to e Lane now explaining how that process came together. Well, since that our the beginning of the protests, there had been various diagrams that were

circulating on the Internet. A lot of them came from things that had been done in Hong Kong, so different diagrams of roles that protesters could take two more effectively protect each other. Some of those involved laser pointers, and some of them involved shields or helmets or supply line stuff. And so those have been being circulated throughout all of June, both on protester telegram channels and also on Twitter and

other communication channels. And as the charges than bullrushes and stuff really heated up and more people were being injured and the police brutality was becoming more intense, a lot of those discussions and how to effectively implement them would be happening after protests had wound down or during the day, and so I would follow and read through all sorts of different threads where people were posting images of how to do Roman style turtleshelf formations with overlapping shields, or

could make an effective vault to block the people behind them from police munitions to more effectively protect all the peaceful protesters who are in the back. All these different emergent groups that form to handle different tasks within the movement are what is called affinity groups. This is a fairly old concept within anarchist organizing. Here, our friends at the Youth Liberation Front or Wild Left explain the context again.

Because President Trump and numerous right wing media figures have repeatedly called for their imprisonment or execution, we've hired voice actors to reread the things they said to us rather than risk exposing their identities. So an affinity group is usually like five to tend people who share some affinity, and it's the preferred method for anarchist organizing because it's small, it's informal, and usually non hierarchical, and usually horizontally organized. Yeah,

and um, it's uh. I think it's been preferable to like the large organization model that we attempted and just failed because there's no accountability and there's no way to ensure that. Like, everyone was cool with each other and when problems came up, they just sucked us over. We spoke to one anonymous activist who had no experience with anarchist organizing prior to the summer of She started coming out to Portland protests earlier in the summer with her friends.

So the first time I went out to one of the nightly protests, I went with a couple of friends that I've known since I was like eighteen or nineteen because they had been going out and I felt comfortable being with them. Um, they don't come out anymore. Once her friends stopped going, she floated around different crews of activists, experimenting with different affinity groups, but eventually deciding that she

preferred an even more decentralized approach to protesting. As far as you know, like my length of knowledge, an affinity group is just you know, a decentralized group of people that you can uh form ideas with and kind of go over maybe like safety tactics and different things like that. Um. But I kind of quickly realized that affinity groups weren't necessarily for me. UM. I think that sometimes it can get complicated fairly quickly, and so I still go down

to the protests by myself. Since I've been doing this for as long as I have, it doesn't take me very long to run into somebody that I know. And sometimes I feel like having someone that's worried about my safety can be a bit of a hindrance sometimes, I you know, having to like be on a radio consistently and and always be on my phone to make sure

that I'm you know, in communication with different people. I don't want anybody to have to worry about if I'm going to be fine, because I'm going to be fine. So yeah, I mean I I just I usually go down by myself. I think that the network of affinity groups has been a positive thing. You know. The people that have been around and experienced the most have that information that they can share with one another. One major advantage of anarchist organizing tactics is that it makes anarchist

groups harder to infiltrate and disrupt. Between nineteen fifty six and nineteen seventy one, the FBI instituted a counter intelligence program nicknamed co intel Pro at the orders of Director j Edgar Hoover. The program was initially targeted at the US Communist Party, but was quickly extended to all kinds of left wing activist organizations, particularly the Black Panthers. Hoover's goal with co Intel Pro was to increase factionalism caused

disruption and wind defections. He wanted to spread such terror among left wing activists that none of them would again walk into a meeting without feeling like there must be FBI agents in the room. Co Intel Pro was incredibly successful, and while the program officially ended in nineteen seventy one. The tactics the FBI pioneered in this period have been used by a variety of law enforcement agencies ever since.

Even organizations like the Portlands Chapter of the Black Panthers, whose more radical programs included free breakfast for neighborhood kids and dental care for all, earned the ire of co intel pro In an interview last year, chapter co founder Kent Ford recalled a journalist sharing with him plots from the FBI to poison the produce the Panthers would use

to feed hundreds of kids every morning. As a result, it is impossible to take part in any kind of mass anti government action and not feel like there are probably federal agents in your miss. Organizing by affinity groups helps to negate some of the advantages the state has. It's impossible to know that any mass group of hundreds of people doesn't include undercover cops, but it is very possible to know that you and your four or five

close buddies aren't cops. The only organizing that occurs in the open at a large scale event is very basic and not legally incriminating. I e. We're gathering at this park at eight PM, hearing speeches, and then marching at nine. On most occasions, either a specific organizer will pick the direction for that week's march or a vote will be

taken as to the destination. The decision to take part in any illegal activity, acts of property destruction in the like is made by these small, independent affinity groups and sometimes just individuals on their own. Often only two or three groups out of a three person march will actually engage in serious law breaking. The others are there to shout, wave signs and stand up to confront the police when

they inevitably arrive. This method of organization does have a number of weaknesses, which we will discuss in subsequent episodes, but it has proven more resilient to state surveillance than being part of an organization with a strict hierarchy. One major aspect of this is that many more dedicated Portland protesters take something called security culture very seriously. Here's the y I left again. Security culture. Uh, security culture, I think is it's interesting the risks you are taking and

what precautions need to take to be safe. Were like because like, not every risk is going to have the same consequences, and so it's being able to judge those, um and like if you do something that's questionable, possibly illegal, don't talk about it, don't don't incriminate yourself, keep your mouth shut, don't incriminate others. I mean, Um, there's just a crime Think article called what is security Culture? I believe and that's like a great introduction for people who

don't know. It's a very important part of like really any movement because if you have bad security culture and you're putting yourself at risk or or the organizers at risks, you're going to disrupt a movement because you're going to get people in trouble. So like that definitely plays like don't let you know, don't talk about things you did,

don't photograph things you did. You can like you know, don't don't bring your phone if that's the thing you're able to do, because like they could track you, and Feds in Portland literally clone phones and have like you know, they can just pinpoint you. So that's another thing where it's like yeah, basically it's knowing the risk and knowing how to safely protect yourself from those risks. That Zene

what is security Culture? We like to make sure to send it to all everyone who wants to get involved with us. That's like the first thing. Yeah, it's the most basic thing that we send. None of these security measures were enough to protect people from being arrested by

cops during actions. It doesn't matter how solid your digital security is or how trustworthy your friends are if a cop charges that you faster than you can run away, But good security culture can prevent activists from being arrested after actions. See the United States is filled to hell and back with cameras when protest sterre's damage or destroy property. While protesting police will spend weeks trying to identify the individuals responsible. This is a big part of why black

block has evolved as a tactic. If everyone is dressed basically identically, with their features covered and no logos or tattoo showing, it's much more difficult for police to identify people after an action. Going in block has disadvantages too, though largely when it comes to optics. When you're properly blocked up, it will be difficult or impossible to determine

your race. As a result, police and local politicians in Portland tended to blame the activities of blocked up crowds on white anarchists alleging that the city's Black Lives Matter movement had been hijacked by white kids who just wanted to break things. Kosca, an Indigenous Portlander who has been arrested by this point at least ten times, pushed back against that characterization. Definitely a narrative that works because people believe it, and people keep repeating it, even some people

of color. I hear repeating it. But I know for a fact it's not true, because because I've been doing this with, you know, people in Black Block for several years and have gotten to know lots of people, and I have never ever seen so many people of color in block before, and particularly Native people, you know, like the just the native people in block is a huge amount compared, you know, compared to the population the general

population of the area. So yeah, I think it's I think you could even say it's races to say that everyone in Black Block is white. In September, after more than four months of nightly protests, the Justice Department launched a criminal inquiry targeting the leaders of organizations responsible for anti police brutality protests across the nation. Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told Fox News what we know is that we have seen groups and individuals moved from Portland to

other parts of the country. I also found a very poorly written USA Today article on the subject and includes this paragraph. Asked why leaders of Antifa, a loosely organized dream far left ideology, and Black Lives Matter formed in part to call attention to violence against black communities, had not been arrested, Wolf said, this is something I talked to the a G personally about and I know that they are working on it. So far, these investigations have

been markedly unsuccessful. Leaked reports later in the year revealed that the Department of Homeland Security thought that Antifa was an organized group with a structured leadership cast that could be identified and arrested. No evidence of this was ever turned up. Would suggest that this sort of decentralized organizational tactic is at least harder for law enforcement to penetrate.

The vast majority of affinity groups don't exist to organized window breaking, fire starting, or any of the other things the media love to focus on in their coverage of Portland protests. At their most basic level, affinity groups are a safety tool. Cop rights can be incredibly dangerous, and everyone considering going into such a situation should have buddies who are there to watch your back and render aid

if you get hurt. Obviously, not everyone interested in participating in protests had friends who are willing to go out with them. Inter Comrade Collective an organization that formed in the middle of the protest to help match loan activists

with buddies they could protest with for the night. And so, um, the first time I had met up with Comrade Collective, it was funny because like, you know, I had all this like anxiety and stuff, and uh, I remember thinking like, oh my god, I'm so uncomfortable, like I don't know these people. And then I was like I'm totally not going to meet up with them again because I was like,

I'll just stay by myself. Um, here we are. But but it was like it was when I when I left, and um, one of our other comrades, uh like messaged me and was like are you home and like I wasn't expecting that, and I was like what And I

was like, oh my god, that's awesome. And then just like getting used to like the checking in, you know, to make sure like they're not arrested or didn't get attacked by you know, fascists or whatever, and so just kind of like, um, I think just getting exposed to like people, I'm like, oh my god, these are like strangers that I don't know that like give a ship about my well being and so that kind of in turn makes you care more about yourself like and then

also want to do the same for others. And I also I'm one that likes that tends to stray from the group. So like, I'm definitely like comfortable by myself in certain situations, but I still I even if I'm separated, I just I like to know that there is someone out there that like I can hit up or whatever or check in with, even if we're not like together

at that moment. By the start of July, all the ingredients were in place for Portland's protest movement to display its first real meaningful resistance to the violent might of

a police riot line. Protests had seriously waned in the days prior to the fourth, with just a few dozen people showing up most nights, but the holiday, and more to the point, the fact that shiploads fireworks were on sale for the holiday, brought a massive crowd of more than a thousand Portlander's out to the city parks in front of the Justice Center and the Mark O. Hatfield

Federal Courthouse. In the days that followed DHS Director Chad Wolf's announcement that rapid deployment teams were being sent to Portland's activists had been on the lookout for Feds. They'd been visible inside the I R. S Building across the street from the Justice Center. Reporters had taken several photographs of men in heavy military body armor carrying rifles, but until the fourth none of those men had actively engaged

with a protest. My team, Beatrix, Selaine, and Garrison and I all arrived in front of the Justice Center at around nine pm. The energy in the air was as apparent as the smell of gunpowder. People were setting off fireworks, mostly mortars, at random in and around the crowd. We hated it at first, after weeks of being repeatedly flashbanged by cops. We were all just ridiculously on edge. The first thing I saw upon a rifle was a pile of American flags burning in a concrete pit that had

once held a massive elk statue. For several nights in a row, protesters had set fires in and around the elk statue, not out of anger, but out of a desire to stay warm, and one assumes for the joy of setting fires. Eventually, the city removed the elk out of fears that it might collapse and injure somebody. Protesters loved the elk statue, though, and began constructing a series of fasimilar elk statues. On the fourth it was a tiny model of a baby elk sandwiched in between billowing flames.

While the flags burned, protesters chanted Black Lives Matter. As more folks arrived, more fireworks were set off. At first, people simply stood in the street in front of the Justice Center, aiming fireworks straight into the air to provide their incarcerated friends with the show. This was not universally popular behavior, because again, at least half the crowd was

dealing with the opening salvos of pretty serious PTSD. At this point, of course, the fireworks continued, and once they hit a certain frequency, everyone's brains kind of gotten numb to the effect. If I can be honest, it started to be fun. Some individuals and affinity groups within the crowd had brought lasers to shine into the giant camera that had been installed out in front of the Justice Center.

By ten PM, the fireworks usage had grown more militant, and people were shooting dozens of commercial grade fireworks straight into the Justice Center, breaking several windows. At least one prisoner inside was seen waving excitedly out to the crowd, which provoked rejoicing outside the fire where sparrage continued, with protesters aiming occasional salvos at the Federal courthouse too. At around ten PM, the police finally showed up your justice

in the building we crooket. Virtually all the people out on the fourth were by this point hardened the police violence. They've been trained by weeks in the streets to do exactly the opposite of whatever the police l rad told them to do, true to form. They surged forward at this, moving in force into the intersection between the courthouse and Justice Center. More and more fireworks were launched at both buildings.

As I moved forward, sensing imminent tear gas, I heard one person behind me say they shouldn't have said anything. Look what happens when they talk. At ten forty one pm, I started live streaming. Almost immediately after that, Federal agents inside the courthouse started dumping tear gas out of holes in the walls of the courthouse. Yeah, that's yeah. So

basically they so far people were shooting it. Ship noted fireworks of uh, and they gave a warning, and people kept firing fireworks And now it looks like SuDS are out and shooting tear gas into the square. The crowd backed up, but did not disperse. Instead, they retreated to the parks, washed each other's eyes out, and continued to shoot fireworks at both buildings. After a few minutes, they

marched forward again into the intersection. No one knew it at the time, but with the first federal tear guest deployment and the decision of protesters to continue advancing on the courthouse, a series of events had been set into motion that would turn Portlands into one of the biggest stories in the country, lead to hundreds of arrests and several near fatal injuries. I don't believe any of the people in the c that night particularly wanted that to happen.

I certainly saw no evidence of a concerted plan. Instead, what I saw was a community of battered people who had just spent weeks being gassed and grenaded and beaten with truncheons and arrested for crimes as minor is standing in an intersection with a sign. They had started coming out to protest police brutality and wound up repeated victims of it, and now over the course of June they'd gotten good at resisting it. Each person there had learned

tactics to mitigate police riot control agents. They'd come to trust their fellow Portlanders, and now finally there were enough of them out again to put up serious resistance to the cops. And they had sacks full of commercial grade fireworks to throw back at the thin blue line shooting grenades at them. With all that psychic weight behind them, there was simply no way this crowd was going to

back down to the demands of police or federal agents. Instead, the massive Portlanders swarmed the front steps of the federal courthouse that had just gassed them. They began launching fireworks directly into its facade, shattering some of the windows higher up. The street level windows were all covered in plywood, and those plywood walls had several hinged slits on them that federal agents inside could flip open to shoot from. I started calling the murder holes after similar features built into

medieval castles. The term stuck minutes went by. Federal agents would occasionally fire pepper balls into the crowd, but eleven PM came and went without another major show of force. At around eleven o five, the police started dumping gas or smoke out of the side door of the Justice Center. The Feds dropped more gas out too, but instead of dispersing,

the crowd moved back in an orderly fashion. Front liners with umbrellas and shields moved to the front and deflected pepper balls, while medics washed out eyes and people with gas masks and respirators ran into the cloud to throw more fireworks at the courthouse. Yeah, that's drops roping it out of the wind, obviously, how the fire we're going off there. The whole situation evolved into something very much like a siege here one the murders w as a

medieval crime, I think. So that's here they're screweding out from the trees. So we definitely have like an old fashioned medieval seed too, sort of crowd getting their fears. Uh, you see a crowd getting their shields to the front. You see the defenders firing had a murder hole. You see fire, you know, pilots shot into the fence. This is Jesus Christ. Yeah, Friday night, everybody putday night. I I can't tell what smoked from fireworks and what's tear gas.

I think the FEDS and the police had expected that gas and pepper balls would suffice to force the crowd away, but the crowd kept advancing. Dedicated teams would run up with traffic cones and put out gas grenades. Eventually, the FEDS and the Portland Police were forced to bombard both parks just to push the crowd away. Yeah wow, okay is going wild. Somebody's riding a bicycle with a shield to the crowd. Fires, fire and bath behind us. Let's

go through here here. Eventually the FEDS and the police made a decision more gas. It was the most gas deployed in Portland since tear gas Tuesday. Despite being doused with gas, the crowd did not scatter. When I washed my eyes out and was able to look around, I saw hundreds of people still arraided for battle and ready to go. The police and federal agents both came out and forced that night. They marched forward, pumping out gas and pepper balls and smoke grenades. The crowd was forced

back foot by foot, but they held together. I think DHS had expected that the presence of federal agents and military gear would have rattled protesters more, but activists just treated them like more cops. The sight of fully armored soldiers in military gear was unsettling, especially since no one at the time had any idea what agency they were with. Look at these guys, we got army guys. Look at

guys here. The combined FEDS and police succeeded in splitting the crowd in two through a combination of walls of gas and bulrushes, but both groups held together and proceeded to lead law enforcement on a two hour chase through the streets of Portland. There were moments of shocking brutality where police would tackle protesters and dragged them on their backs across asphalt into clouds of gas to arrest them.

One protester we interviewed was arrested that night. She'd shown up as a shield bearer and had been one of the people protecting the crowd from incoming fire. Yeah. Yeah, the Fourth of July was wild. You know. I think we everyone went into that night knowing like, you know, this is the fourth of July. It's going to be a fairly big night. The protests for really, they were

going strong. And I showed up before the sun went down and was just kind of doing the thing that I had been doing the entire time leading up to that point, which is, you know, I was far enough away from the police that I could be there if anyone got tear gas to help them with sailine or something like that. Um and I had been coming out each night with like extra gear to hand out to people that didn't have anything. So I was with one of my friends who ended up getting arrested right next

to me. UM and I was giving someone sailing and he said, Emily, get up there about to rush us. And I had been given a shield that night because the night before there was a woman who was who had been tear gassed really really badly, and I gave her like my personal gear. I had given away all of my extra stuff, so I gave her my my stuff. And someone came up to me earlier in the evening and was like are you Emily and Asia, They're like we made this for you, Like you helped my friend

last night. Um, and so this is for you. And so I had a shield with me. I used my shield to get up off of the ground and I started to run and that's when I got tackled and arrested. I had, you know, after looking at the video, I remember feeling um, at least two knees on top of me and um, you know, going back and thinking about it, like I had a palm on top of my head. I ended up with a black eye that I had for like three weeks. Um. But someone was palming my

face into the pavement. Uh. And so you know, I get up, I had a backpack on. They cut my backpack off of me. The person, the officer that arrested me, told me that I had tried to hit a police officer with my shield. And I just like very calmly and and politely said, you know, like, you know, look proving that because I would never do anything like that, Because I wouldn't. I was down there to help the people that needed to be helped. I'm not a medic. I never wore met a gear. I never claimed to

be a medic. You know, I was just there to to assist in any way that I could both crowds engaged in something of a fighting retreat for the better part of two hours. When police would mass up for a bulrush, protesters would launch fireworks into their riot line. This disrupted them every time and seemed to even panics some. Eventually, the police grew so weary of being blasted that they pulled back and both crowds were able to escape pursuit.

At around twelve forty am, both crowds met up again, just a couple of blocks away from the court House and Justice Center. After two hours of constant fighting, hundreds and hundreds of people were still together, organized and dangerous. Despite everyone's weariness, there was tremendous excitement in the air as the crowd of Portlanders reoccupied the parks and set off celebratory fireworks in the center of the Elk Statue. They gotten off fireworks again, celebrating for the first time

since the demonstrations had begun. On May twenty nine, Portland protesters had what felt like a real victory. The police and the federal agents had thrown everything in their arsenal at a crowd that refused to disperse. People had held their own against multiple riot lines and forced them to back away for the first time ever a crowd kicked out of the parks in front of the Justice Center had succeeded in reoccupying those parks for a long time.

People just celebrate. Oh boy. In my own experience, July four was the first night that did feel a little like a revolution. And of course the coming days and weeks would make it very clear that the fight was far from over and that July four had been at best a very temporary victory. But in the early hours of it still felt like one uh where the grand pops who couldn't fathom the obamasist, I don't hate America, just to me, and she keeps some promisess looking like

the sixties. It's crazy, a nationwide dejabu what my people post to do? Go to schools named after the clan founder were around town? Is I don't see why were frowning Native American students forced to learn about when o'pellah Sarah? How is that fair? Bro? Some Euros unsung in some monthsters get monuments built for them. But ain't be all a little bit of monster We crook it h