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(Washington) Clashes between protesters and police again marked the night from Friday to Saturday in the city of Portland, Oregon, the scene since nearly two months of rallies against racism and now against the deployment of federal agents ordered by Donald Trump.
Published on 24 July 2020 at 8 o'clock25 Updated at 15 h 21
France Media Agency
The night was a little more tense than the previous ones, especially when demonstrators tried to bring down a barrier in front of the federal court, which became the epicenter of the protests, noted an AFP journalist.
The security forces responded with heavy tear gas fire.
PHOTO MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Police, with the help of federal agents, finally dispersed the crowd into the dead of night.
The movement in this city in the northwest of the United States had started, as elsewhere in the country and in the world, after the death in late May of 'a black man, George Floyd, below the knee of a white policeman in Minneapolis.
It escalated when federal police arrived in Portland in mid-July. In numerous videos posted on social media, we see these agents, in paramilitary clothing and without visible identification badges, using unmarked vehicles to arrest demonstrators, stoking the embers of the protest.
PHOTO MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ, ASSOCIATED PRESS
An official investigation was opened Thursday by the Justice Department into the controversial actions of federal police on the scene.
President Trump, who is campaigning for re-election in November on the restoration of “order”, also announced Wednesday to strengthen the number of agents federal government in Chicago and other cities after a resurgence in crime and shootings.
Incident in Louisville
On Saturday, three people sustained minor gunshot wounds on the sidelines of an anti-racist protest in Louisville, Kentucky, reports reported. American media. The police, however, spoke of “accidental” circumstances.
In this city, black militants of the NFAC group, heavily armed, protested against the death of Breonna Taylor, a black woman killed by police in March in his appartment. But police were deployed to avoid clashes with white counter-demonstrators from a conservative group, also armed.
In Portland, on the night of Friday to Saturday, beyond the tensions, the demonstrators also found themselves in a good-natured atmosphere, playing percussion and firing fireworks to applause from the crowd.
Some of them had gathered before nightfall in front of a memorial to black people who died of police violence.
“It's amazing that so many people are coming, so I just want to be one more voice,” said Sean Robinson, IT manager. “And my other message is that black people's lives matter.”
Daniel Douglas, a computer scientist from 28 years old, wears a backpack on which he wrote “the feds out now”.
“We don't want the feds from outside our city to occupy our city and terrorize our communities,” he explained.