Unlawful assembly declared during Portland protest

Portland, Oregon police declared an unlawful assembly outside a precinct on Thursday night and ordered protesters to leave. The police had said earlier that they believed the intent of the crowd was to vandalize and burn the precinct.

Officers worked to clear streets near the precinct of demonstrators, at times running at the crowd to push people away. Smoke canisters were also deployed, local reporters said. Portland police said some demonstrators in the group laid ties made of rebar in the street that caused damage to police vehicles.

The demonstrations came hours after the city's mayor decried the unrest that has roiled Portland since George Floyd was killed.

“You are not demonstrating, you are attempting to commit murder,” Mayor Ted Wheeler said Thursday in a hastily called news conference alongside Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell. Wheeler also warned that the city anticipated more “attacks on public buildings” in the immediate future.

“Don’t think for a moment that if you are participating in this activity, you are not being a prop for the reelection campaign of Donald Trump - because you absolutely are,” the mayor had said. “If you don’t want to be part of that, then don’t show up.”

The clashes between thousands of protesters and U.S. agents sent by the Trump administration to guard the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse stopped after an agreement between Democratic Gov. Kate Brown and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that called for the agents to begin drawing down their presence in Portland’s downtown on July 30.

But after a brief weekend reprieve, protest activity has continued nightly in other parts of the city, with Portland police, local sheriff’s deputies and, in some cases, Oregon State Police troopers on the frontlines as demonstrators demand an end to police funding.