Portland police arrest 8, fire crowd-control munitions
PORTLAND — Portland police arrested eight people and fired crowd-control munitions to disperse protesters who threw rocks and bottles during demonstrations in front of law enforcement buildings on Saturday night and Sunday morning.
The series of confrontations began late Saturday, the 30th consecutive day of demonstrations outside the Multnomah County Justice Center, where protesters used fencing and street barricades to block off a street, according to KOIN-TV and the Portland Police Bureau.
Thousands of people in the liberal Pacific Northwest city have turned out every night for a month since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Civil liberties advocates say the police response has been overly aggressive and said in a lawsuit Sunday that the tactics appear designed to squelch free speech.
Portland police said that lasers were shined into officers’ eyes, and people threw rocks, bottles and paint at them during the demonstration. After using loudspeakers to tell the protesters to leave, officers used riot-control munitions to disperse the crowd, police said.
Read more: https://www.registerguard.com/news/20200628/portland-police-arrest-8-fire-crowd-control-munitions
(Eugene Register Guard)