As you walk around America’s capital Washington DC, the city looks like it’s preparing more for a riot than election parties.

Shops are boarding up their windows, authorities are readying their defences against violent demonstrations, and an ‘anti-climb’ wall is being built around the White House.

Tourists, once able to stand outside the White House fence for a clear view of the historic residence, have been pushed back to surrounding streets, and the view is blocked by barricades and a heavy police presence.

The Executive Office of the President has become even more fortified, with multiple layers of high chain link fencing, concrete vehicle barriers and a security perimeter that keeps expanding.

Election night is just days away, and the mood around the city — and the country— is tense.

City and law enforcement officials are bracing for two anxiety-inducing scenarios: clashes on the streets and at polling stations.

The wall around the White House was erected in July, after the death of George Floyd triggered nationwide protests against the treatment of unarmed black people by police.

Many protests deteriorated into rioting and looting, and in some cases, shootings.

Police officers, their vehicles and buildings were attacked and law enforcement officers themselves were accused of brutality in a multitude of incidents.

Often trouble came from outside agitators, with anti-government and anti-law enforcement agendas in a confusing, toxic brew of chaos that is contributing to the current anxiety about election night.

The Secret Service prepares for violence

Nowhere is security likely to be tighter than in Washington DC, where Mr Trump’s campaign is promising an election night “victory” party at the Trump International Hotel, five blocks from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The capital has more than two dozen law enforcement agencies with overlapping jurisdiction.

The US Secret Service is responsible for safeguarding the President and his family, the White House and its perimeter, and its agents will be coordinating with a broad cross section of law enforcement officers.

Officers from the US Capitol Police, Metropolitan Police Department, National Parks Police and other agencies will be part of the planning rubric, along with local emergency services.

Former veteran Secret Service agent Don Mihalek said the violent protests in Washington DC and other US cities this year have taught law enforcement officers to prepare for an escalation of events at protests.

“Unfortunately, expecting violence is now part and parcel of the situation. If and when riots occur is always a question,” Mr Mihalek said.

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“If they occur, officers have to anticipate that they might be attacked by rioters. How are they going to deal with it? It’s front and centre of any planning right now.”

His concern is not with Americans exercising their constitutional right to protest peacefully.

“My concern is the response of radical protesters who undermine our democracy and conduct violence, burning buildings and attacking law enforcement. They come armed and ready to attack police officers.”

David Lipson@davidlipsonWashington DC is boarding up shopfronts, preparing for election destruction. This is the 3rd time they’ve done this since June.

He expects wide road blocks around the Trump Hotel and the White House, and zero tolerance from law enforcement officers for armed protesters or militia.

Washington DC is one of only a handful of US jurisdictions that prohibit the open carrying of weapons.

“Armed militia are not getting anywhere near Trump Hotel or the White House. Anyone armed that shows up would risk spending time in jail, or worse,” Mr Mihalek said.

“They’d be taking their life into their hands that night.”

Fears of violence at the polling booth

There are also concerns about the potential for confrontations or attempts to intimidate voters when they try to cast their ballots, especially in swing states where vote counts may be extremely close.

President Trump has urged his supporters to “go into the polls and watch very carefully”, while his campaign has released a video urging them to look for tell-tale signs of suspicious behaviour.

“You’re looking at body language,” the video says.

“If you see a confused look on a voter’s face or a confused look on a poll worker’s face, or any kind of delay in the process, there’s your clue.”

Michael Chertoff, the former Secretary of Homeland Security under Republican President George W. Bush, ridiculed the video during an interview with CNN.

“I think that’s utter nonsense. This is an effort to create disturbances and intimidation,” Mr Chertoff said.

As the President prepares for the possibility of a contested election, current and former security officials including Mr Chertoff are trying to instil confidence in voters.

“The good news is many of the jurisdictions, they are aware of this effort and they realise in many cases these efforts violate state law and they have been preparing themselves to take action against people who are misbehaving at polling places,” he said.

But a recent poll found fewer than one quarter of Americans believe the election will be free and fair.

Among those polled, 50 per cent of Trump supporters say the election won’t be fair and 37 per cent of Biden supporters agree.

In the home stretch, hundreds of lawsuits challenging voting rules around the country are still before the courts, and may yet help determine the election winner.

If cases end up going to the Supreme Court, they will be decided by a new conservative majority of Supreme Court Justices, with President Trump’s latest nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett newly confirmed to the bench.

Election judges will be on watch

Election judge Julie Hughes will be among hundreds of thousands of authorised workers deployed across the US to safeguard voting at polling stations on November 3.

She has spent more than 30 years working abroad in democracy development, including in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Egypt, Iraq and Libya.

In 2013, Egypt sentenced her and other activists in absentia to a five-year jail term for her work promoting democracy.

But this US presidential election is the first time her friends overseas have called to ask her if she’s OK.

“I used to think democracy was this inevitable force in the universe, but democracy is a lifelong struggle to maintain representative government,” she said.

Ms Hughes expects there will be voter intimidation efforts at some stations.

In her state of Maryland, an equal number of election judges who identify with the political parties are placed at the polls, and while they’re not really ‘judges’ they are called on to handle minor disputes.

Incidents of violence or allegations of vote tampering would immediately go to the onsite chief judge, who would decide what response was required.

President Trump has been sounding the alarm on voter fraud since he was candidate Trump in 2016.

Post-election, he made unproven allegations that millions of people voted illegally for Hillary Clinton, to help explain why he lost the popular vote to her.

When he took office, he established a White House Commission to investigate voter fraud, only to abruptly shut down the commission after finding there was no evidence of widespread voter corruption.

“For the first time, we have a President of the United States saying our elections are fraudulent and the results rigged and that casts doubt on one of the basic tenets of the democracy,” long-time Republican election lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg said.

“There is a requirement you would think, on the President of the United States going to make that statement, to have some proof of it and that’s not there.”

Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-31/fears-of-violence-as-donald-trump-joe-biden-race-draws-to-close/12817748

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Eight Minneapolis residents are suing the city council over a lack of police presence amid spikes in violent crime in the city, according to local news reports.

The residents are blaming the council’s calls to defund the police after George Floyd‘s May 25 death and argue that the city has not said how many officers are currently on the ground to meet a minimum requirement for protecting residents, according to WCCO.

“We are here, together in unison, to say enough is enough,” community activist Cathy Spann said during a Monday press conference. “I am here today to say it is about all of us coming together to make a difference to stop the gun violence that is in our city — downtown, south, north. We are stopping it. We are no longer asking for a plan. We are the plan.”

The Minneapolis City Council members in June voted to completely dismantle the city’s police department and replace it with a community safety program.

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The council has since changed its stance amid a surge in violent crime and carjackings in Minneapolis. Mayor Jacob Frey’s 2021 budget plan released on Sept. 22 includes a $14 million budget cut to the police department from $193 million in adopted funds in 2020 to nearly $179 million in 2021 amid a surge in retirements and a hiring freeze.

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“We have made the emotional appeal,” former City Council member Don Samuels said during the conference. “We have demonstrated the statistical uptick [in violence], and now, this is the legal action we are exercising because it seems as if the City Council cannot hear us and doesn’t feel what we feel.”

The city told Fox9 that it is meeting the federal requirements for the number of sworn officers representing a population and asked the judge involved in the case to dismiss it.

“We simply want to have enough police on the streets to keep Minneapolis safe,” Attorney James Dickey, who is representing the plaintiffs in the case, told Fox9.

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The MPD’s digital “Data Dashboard” shows a surge in violent crime in the city between June and July. For the week beginning June 16, for example, the city recorded 171 violent crimes compared to 111 the week prior and 90 during the same time in 2019. That number went up to 172 violent crimes during the week beginning July 21. Violent crime numbers have remained relatively high through September and October.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/us/minneapolis-residents-sue-city-council-police

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The Justice Department explored possible criminal or civil charges against local officials in Portland, Ore., after weeks of clashes between federal law enforcement and violent protesters, spokeswoman Kerri Kupec told Fox News.

Kupec declined to comment on whether the department ultimately will bring charges. She said there were no specific charges in mind, rather, DOJ officials were looking at the way Portland officials “were handling, or not handling” the riots and violence.

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The spokeswoman also did not confirm whether DOJ officials were focusing on specific city officials. The office of Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler did not immediately respond to a Fox News request for comment.

Separately, Justice Department officials disputed news reports that Attorney General William Barr told prosecutors in the department’s civil rights division to explore whether they could bring charges against Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan for allowing some residents to establish a protest zone this summer.

President Trump has criticized Democrats, and specifically, Wheeler, who he says have not done enough to stop nights of looting and unrest in cities across the U.S. Trump has called Wheeler a “wacky Radical Left Do Nothing Democrat Mayor” and has said the city “will never recover with a fool for a Mayor….”

Just days after the death of George Floyd while in the custody of police in Minneapolis at the end of May, large demonstrations reached Portland’s streets and nightly clashes between protesters and police officers continued for over a month until federal law enforcement was sent in to protect federal properties.

After arriving over the July 4 weekend, federal officers with the U.S. Marshals Service and other agencies were told Portland police was explicitly ordered not to respond to the federal courthouse as hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside, some throwing bricks, rocks, and Molotov cocktails at officers, and not to assist federal officers who were sent to try to quell the unrest.

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Federal law enforcement remained in the city for about four weeks until the Department of Homeland Security and Oregon’s Democratic Gov. Kate Brown agreed on a plan to bring Oregon State Police into downtown Portland and for federal officers to begin leaving the city.

More than 100 people have been arrested in Portland on federal charges related to the unrest over the last few months. The FBI has said it was also shifting the agency’s resources to focus more heavily on violence and federal crimes committed during nearly three months of unrest during nightly racial injustice protests in the city that often ended in vandalism, clashes with police, and dozens of arrests.

Wheeler and Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell publicly clashed last week after the mayor ordered police to stop using CS or tear gas for crowd control. The Portland Police Bureau argued in a press release hours later that amid “repeated violence by a group of motivated and well-organized individuals” carried out for more than 100 consecutive nights, officers used tear gas to “disperse crowds only when there is a life safety event.”

“Most recently, it was used to disperse a crowd from which a Molotov cocktail was thrown at officers and ended up injuring a community member who was on fire,” the police bureau said, expressing regret that some gas seeped into nearby homes. “However, the community should be asking the rioters why they are committing violence that threatens the very lives of others nearby. When people gather lawfully, peacefully, there is no need for intervention by police, much less the use of CS gas.”

In an email to Lovell and assistant chiefs, Wheeler said: “While I do not often issue directives to the Portland Police Bureau, when I do I expect them to be followed. Civilian oversight of the Police Bureau is set in the Portland City Charter, and every sworn officer takes an oath to abide by that charter. Professionalism and public service demand nothing less,” a copy obtained by the Portland Tribune said.

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The mayor’s office added in a statement: “PPB’s decision to put out a press release questioning my direction was a serious breach of protocol and an inappropriate use of City communications resources. I made it clear, in no uncertain terms, to the Chief that this cannot happen again.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/portland-riots-justice-department-considered-pursuing-charges-against-city-officials-in-violent-unrest

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Ali Velshi was reporting live from the Twin Cities amid the uproar following the death of 46-year-old George Floyd. Velshi attempted to explain that what he was witnessing was “calmer” than the night prior.

“For most of the day, today, it looked a lot calmer than yesterday looked,” Velshi began after showing his colleague Brian Williams some of the destruction that took place. “And that’s what happened yesterday. It picked up later in the evening. The crowds gathered here and the standoff with the police looked very different last night.”

Velshi then acknowledged that he could see “four fires” within his vicinity, including a liquor store that was burning behind him as well as the 3rd Precinct police department, which was earlier evacuated before the crowd set it on fire.

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“I want to be clear on how I characterize this. This is mostly a protest. It is not, generally speaking, unruly but fires have been started and this crowd is relishing that,” Velshi told Williams. “There is a deep sense of grievance and complaint here, and that is the thing. That when you discount people who are doing things to public property that they shouldn’t be doing, it does have to be understood that this city has got, for the last several years, an issue with police, and it’s got a real sense of the deep sense of grievance of inequality.”

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Protesters burned an American flag and a Bible in Portland, Oregon, sparking outrage just as weeks of violent demonstrations seemed to be coming to a close.

For more than 60 days, Black Lives Matters demonstrators, including a “Wall of Moms” and a “Wall of Vets,” have clashed with federal agents in the city, drawing national attention as authorities blasted marchers with tear gas and the civilians at times responded with weapons of their own — such as feces, bleach, bricks or batteries.

Friday night’s demonstrations were largely peaceful, appearing to mark a break from the chaos as federal agents made a recent deal to allow local authorities to handle the protests.

But just after midnight, marchers were caught on video using the flag and holy book as kindling for bonfires lit outside the federal courthouse, which has been a focal point of rioting after the death of George Floyd in police custody in May, according to a news report.

“Left-wing activists bring a stack of Bibles to burn in front of the federal courthouse in Portland,” claimed Ian Miles Cheong on Twitter Saturday.

The post featured a video which showed protestors with “Black Lives Matter” signs tossing bibles into a raging bonfire. The video, which has gone viral, had more than 1.8 million views and thousands of retweets.

“Now we move to the book-burning phase,” said Donald Trump Jr. in a tweet Saturday. “I’m pretty sure ANTIFA doesn’t actually stand for what they say it stands for. Maybe just remove the anti part of [their] name and it’s perfect,” he wrote.

The fire was later put out by members of Moms United for Black Lives Matter, who doused the flames with bottles of water and stomped on the embers, according to KOIN 6, a local CBS affiliate television station in Portland.

Source: https://nypost.com/2020/08/01/protestors-burn-bible-american-flag-as-tensions-rise-in-portland/

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Attorney General Bill Barr clashed with Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday over accusations that he is carrying out President Trump‘s political wishes, as he appeared for a long-awaited hearing where tensions also flared over protests and riots following George Floyd’s death in police custody.

The hearing, originally scheduled for 10 a.m. local time, was delayed after committee chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., was in a car accident. Nadler did not suffer any injuries.

Once the hearing began, which lasted until mid-afternoon, Nadler did not hesitate to express his scorn for Barr and his Justice Department.

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“Thank you for being here, Mr. Barr,” Nadler said with a note of sarcasm, pointing out that this was the attorney general’s first time appearing before the committee.

The chairman went on to claim that Barr and his department have “downplayed the effects of systemic racism” in the wake of Floyd’s death and ongoing protests.

Addressing the department’s approach to cases related to the Russia probe, Nadler summed up the DOJ’s attitude by claiming that “the president’s enemies will be punished, his friends will be protected,” no matter the cost, and saying that the DOJ’s actions have caused “real damage to our democratic norms.”

“In your time at the department, you have aided and abetted the worst failings of the president,” Nadler said.

Ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, fired back in his opening that Democrats’ hostility toward Barr is based on one thing: “Spying.”

Jordan said that Democrats took exception to Barr accusing the Obama administration of spying on the Trump campaign, despite evidence that has come out revealing flaws in the FBI’s process in acquiring a warrant to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Jordan also pointed to evidence that the FBI engaged in questionable tactics in investigating Michael Flynn, whose criminal case the DOJ requested be dismissed. At another point in the hearing, Barr affirmed earlier reporting that he has appointed U.S. Attorney John Bash of the Western District of Texas to investigate the practice of “unmasking” Americans who have had conversations with foreign officials.

Jordan then addressed the ongoing unrest in the U.S., showing a lengthy montage of media clips that began with reporters calling the incidents “peaceful protests” and then going into a string of clips of violence and fires in various parts of the country.

Barr, speaking next with his opening remarks, did not shy away from Democrats’ accusations against him. He insisted that he acts independently of the president and that his goal is to make sure that everyone is treated equally under the law.

He emphatically stated that Trump “has not attempted to interfere” in decisions regarding the handling of criminal matters.

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“On the contrary, he has told me from the start that he expects me to exercise my independent judgment to make whatever call I think is right,” he continued. “That is precisely what I have done.”

Barr also addressed the racial tension following Floyd’s death. While acknowledging the tragedy, he defended the criminal justice system by arguing that in the past 50 years progress has been made and that any racism on the part of individual officers is not due to “some deep-seated racism generally infecting our police departments.” He noted that “[p]olice forces today are far more diverse than ever before.”

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The attorney general responded by recent calls to defund police as “grossly irresponsible.”

Barr also spoke out against “violent rioters and anarchists” that he said have “hijacked legitimate protests,” specifically mentioning the ongoing unrest in Portland as an example.

The Trump administration has been blasted in the media for sending federal officers in to quell the unrest, but Barr defended the effort, arguing that these are not peaceful protests, but “an assault on the Government of the United States.” He described the weapons that some demonstrators have used and noted that a federal courthouse has been under siege.

The tension only escalated once the questioning began, with Nadler implying that Barr was using federal forces responding to unrest to provide material to aid Trump’s campaign.

When asked if he has discussed the campaign with Trump, Barr answered sharply, stating, “I’m a member of the Cabinet and there’s an election going on, obviously the topic comes up,” adding that “it shouldn’t be a surprise.”

Nadler later accused Barr of using federal forces to provide Trump with footage for campaign ads. When Barr tried to respond and say that he was not using federal law enforcement to help Trump’s campaign, Nadler spoke over him.

Later in the hearing, Barr got an opportunity to explain federal activities in Portland.

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“Federal courts are under attack. Since when is it OK to burn down a federal court?” Barr said.

He said: “If someone went down the street to the Prettyman Court here, that beautiful courthouse we have right at the bottom of the hill and started breaking windows and firing industrial-grade fireworks in to start a fire, throw kerosene balloons in and start fires in the court, is that OK? Is that OK now? No, the U.S. Marshals have a duty to stop that and defend the courthouse, and that’s what we are doing in Portland. We are at the courthouse, defending the courthouse.”

“We are not out looking for trouble.”

At another point in the hearing, Barr lamented that only one political party seemed to be sticking up for federal property and condemning mobs.

“What makes me concerned for the country is this is the first time in my memory that the leaders of one of our two great political parties, the democratic party are not coming out and condemning mob violence and the attack on federal courts,” Barr said. “Why can’t we just say, you know, violence against federal courts has to stop? Could we hear something like that?”

Barr also had an opportunity to explain his positions in the Michael Flynn and Roger Stone cases, and launched an impassioned defense against the accusations that he has treated the president’s friends with particular and improper favor and gone after his enemies.

“What enemies have I indicted?” Barr asked.

He then turned to the cases involving Trump’s associates.

“The cases that are cited, the Stone case and the Flynn case, are both cases where I determined that some intervention was necessary to rectify the rule of law, to make sure people are treated the same,” Barr said.

“Stone was prosecuted under me. And I said all along I thought that was a righteous prosecution, I thought he should go to jail, and I thought the judge’s sentence was correct,” he continued. “But the line prosecutors were trying to advocate for a sentence that was more than twice anyone in a similar position had ever served, and this was a 67-year-old man, first-time offender, no violence. And they were trying to put him in jail for seven to nine years. And I wasn’t going to advocate that, because that is not the rule of law.”

Barr said: “I agree the president’s friends don’t deserve special breaks but they also don’t deserve to be treated more harshly than other people and sometimes that’s a difficult decision to make, especially when you know you’re going to be castigated for it.”

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Later in the hearing, Barr touched on the Flynn case, noting that the case against him warranted dismissal in light of exculpatory evidence surrounding his initial FBI interview, which had recently become public. This included notes that indicated that federal agents may have been trying to get Flynn to lie so that he could be prosecuted.

“The interview was untethered to any legitimate investigation,” Barr said.

Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., called into question Barr’s claim that there is no inherent racism in the American justice system, pointing to Barr’s own department as evidence to support his claim.

“The one thing that you have in common with your two predecessors, both Attorney General [Jeff] Sessions and [acting] Attorney General [Matt] Whitaker, is that when you all came here and brought your top staff, you brought no black people,” Richmond said. “That, sir, is systematic racism. That is exactly what John Lewis spent his life-fighting.”

Early in his opening statement, Barr paid his respects to Lewis, who was a champion of civil rights. Richmond did not appreciate the kind words.

“You really should keep the name of the Honorable John Lewis out of the Department of Justice’s mouth,” Richmond said.

Richmond also brought up an issue that Democrats have raised, regarding whether or not the president would leave office if he loses November’s election. Trump himself has refused to state whether he would accept the election results, claiming that the election would be rigged by a Democratic push for mail-in voting.

When asked if an election result could be contested, Barr pointed to 2000’s Gore v. Bush, in which the Supreme Court had to intervene before an outcome was finalized. When asked if the president could contest the election if the result is not close, Barr said, “Not that I’m aware of.”

Barr said that he has no reason to believe that the election will be rigged, although he did state that mail-in voting exposes the system to a high risk of fraud.

The hearing was also full of tension between Barr and Democratic lawmakers as they fought to speak over one another. The questioning from Reps. Lou Correa, D-Calif., and Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., became particularly heated as kept trying to respond to their comments.

“This is a hearing,” Barr said. “I thought I was the one who was supposed to be heard?”

Jordan came to Barr’s defense when he questioned Nadler on why he was permitting Democratic lawmakers to interrupt the attorney general and not let him respond to questions.

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“For months you’ve tried to get the attorney to come,” Jordan told Nadler. “He’s here. Why don’t you let him speak? Why don’t you let him answer the questions?”

Jordan continued: “If you want the attorney general to come at least let him answer the accusations made against him…Time after time you refuse to let the attorney general answer the questions posed to him.”

Fox News’ Andrew O’Reilly contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/barr-testifies-before-house-judiciary-committee-maintains-independence-from-trump

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A riot was declared in Portland just after midnight Thursday morning after Mayor Ted Wheeler’s tense visit with protesters— where he was booed, told to resign, given a list of demands and tear-gassed by federal agents.

His visit ended with his security detail engaging in a struggle with protesters late Wednesday night as they worked to get the mayor to safety, a report said.

Earlier, he moved with protesters to the fence outside of the federal courthouse where he stood at the front and was tear-gassed along with the crowd, according to New York Times correspondent Mike Baker.

A riot has been declared outside the Justice Center. Disperse to the north and/or west. Disperse immediately. Failure to adhere to this order may subject you to arrest or citation, or riot control agents, including, but not limited to, tear gas and/or impact weapons.

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Wheeler called the tear-gassing an “egregious overreaction,” telling Baker he didn’t see anything in the crowd that warranted the reaction by federal officers.

“This is not a de-escalation strategy,” he said. “This is flat-out urban warfare and it’s being brought on this country by the president and it’s got to stop now.”

PORTLAND BANS POLICE FROM WORKING WITH FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT 

As Wheeler left, a few protesters following him tried to push against his security team once he had entered a building. Others threw water bottles and other projectiles at the glass door, according to Baker.

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Mike Baker@ByMikeBaker

·Jul 22, 2020

Replying to @ByMikeBaker

Mayor Wheeler with eyes closed, coughing, suffering from the tear gas.

“How does it feel, Teddy?” someone shouts.

Wheeler leaves the scene. Protesters throw water bottles at him and curse him. He manages to get inside a building after a scuffle between protesters and his security detail.

Portland’s City Council passed new policies on Wednesday that immediately bans all police bureau members from working with federal law enforcement and prevents them from intentionally arresting or using force on journalists and legal observers.

Wheeler had joined protesters downtown earlier in the evening for a listening session where he thanked them for opposing the Trump administration’s “occupation” of the city in the deployment of federal agents.

“I think what we’re doing tonight is actually the best thing we can do right now,” Wheeler told hundreds in the crowd after a protester asked how to get federal officers out of the city, according to KGW-TV. “Be here, be heard, be unified, and be clear. We didn’t want them, we didn’t ask for them, they’re not trained for what they’re being asked to do. And we want them to leave.”

Hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters rally near the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Tuesday, July 21, 2020, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

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Wheeler, who has repeatedly said he opposes the deployment of federal officers to the city, was nearly drowned out by shouts and jeers and calls to resign and was loudly booed when he told a protester that he didn’t support abolishing the police department.

He then addressed a much larger crowd from a raised balcony, saying “I am here tonight to stand with you.” He received some cheers when he chanted “Black lives matter!” with the crowd.

Some protesters also threw fireworks at the courthouse and tried to knock down the fencing erected outside.

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Wheeler, who is also the police commissioner, has been accused by some of not reining in local police, who have used tear gas multiple times before federal agents arrived early this month in response to nearly two months of nightly protests since George Floyd was killed. Others, including business leaders, have condemned Wheeler for not bringing the situation under control before the federal agents arrived.

The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

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Fox News’ David Aaro and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Mike Baker@ByMikeBaker

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Source: https://www.foxnews.com/us/portland-mayors-security-teams-scuffles-with-protesters-after-listening-session

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