Occupational hazard: Brutal arrests in Re-Occupy Portland

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Published time: December 04, 2011 10:12
Edited time: December 05, 2011 22:59

Portland, Oregon – December 3, 2011 – Portland police arrest a man during the Occupy Portland protest in Shemanski Park (Ray Whitehouse/The Oregonian)

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At least one protester has been injured as riot police were clearing an OWS encampment in a downtown Portland park area in Oregon, USA, on Saturday night. The teenager was hit in the face with a police baton. Several others were arrested.

Police say officers began detaining demonstrators at South Park blocks around 8:30pm after the park was closed 30 minutes early, AP reports.

Protesters are posting photographic evidence of police brutality during their raids. One of them shows 15-year-old Walker Prettyman, who was injured during the Occupy Portland protest in Shemanski Park. According to the young man, a police officer hit him in the face with his baton.

(Ray Whitehouse/The Oregonian)

Eventually, despite the ban from the city officials put on overnight camping, Occupy Portland demonstrators set up their tents in the park in south-western Portland.

After Portland police arrested those protesters who refused to leave encampments Saturday night, OWS demonstrators moved towards City Hall and continued their protests without attempting to “occupy” any place, while riot police gathered in groups near the building.

According to the latest updates, hundreds of protesters returned to the South Park blocks, partying. No further action from the authorities has followed so far, but police say they are ready to perform new arrests.

"We'll arrest people if we have to. We'll deal with it as we need to," OregonLive.com quoted a spokesman for the Portland Police Bureau, Sgt. Pete Simpson, as saying.

"We'll encourage people to leave and not be arrested," he added.

There have been no camps set up in Portland in the past three weeks, since last police raid in the city center. The same as this time, authorities were dismantling the tents and arresting protesters.

At a Friday morning news conference, Occupy spokesman Jordan Ledoux said that having a central place for the movement is essential to receive cash and food donations, OregonLive.com quoted him.

In response to the group's message, Portland’s mayor Sam Adams said "we simply cannot afford another encampment in our city. I would much rather spend our finite dollars on direct services to those in need, rather than patrolling and cleaning up after an encampment," the website quoted him as saying.

Comments (20)

Jose Rodriguez 05.12.2011 04:14

I believe is better if the guys from OWS Portland & OWS Seattle unite in a single big group to protest together in Seattle & Portland but in different days..for example: the protest united in Seattle from Monday to Thursday and then in Portland from Friday to Sunday..so in this way they will bea much bigger group with a more powerful precense instead of protesting by separed ways..this also applys for Boston-NYC, Orange County-LA-San Diego, etc.
Well,this just an example...

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Salmon 05.12.2011 02:53

To all the people moaning about park damage, the city of Portland estimateds the rehabilitation of the parks will cost $85,000 (this seems really high to me, but we'll use that number), according to Wickipedia the population of PDX is 583, 776. Let's do some simple math:

85,000& nbsp; divided by 583,776 = 0.1456037, in other words the cost of park recovery is under 15 cents per person.

That of course does not include the costs of police overtime, but the invasion of storm troopers was arguably completely unecessary.

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js 04.12.2011 20:59

Kihnu (unregistered) wrote in #9
RT management and staff sure understand the visual impact of carefully selected photos. Society expects that in the lack of other material? Many newspapers here (Germany) wrote about this in a way quite out of proportion, on their part to show that any kind of critique can only be stupid. So won't hurt to get another angle, you don't have to believe. And, in a way the whole thing appears like a mirror of society's laziness? People long for change just don't talk to each other neither support what's already there>government+ outside?

"Sat urday night, OWS demonstrators moved towards City Hall and continued their protests without attempting to 'occupy' any place." - At RT's they seem to have kept a good sense of humour! :D

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