Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler came under fire over a viral video showing Antifa protesters blocking traffic and harassing drivers, but he says he supports the decision by police to watch from a distance without getting involved.
“I was appalled by what I saw in the video, but I support the Portland Police Bureau’s decision not to intervene,” he said at a press conference. “This whole incident will be investigated.”
The video posted by journalist Andy C. Ngo showed protesters, including members of Antifa and Black Lives Matter, blocking an intersection and attempting to direct traffic at while officers on motorcycle watched from a block away.
At one point, the activists chased down 74-year-old Kent Houser after he made a right turn against their wishes, pounding on his silver Lexus and breaking a window. The car sustained thousands of dollars in damage, he told the Oregonian.
Even so, Mr. Wheeler insisted that “motorists should feel completely safe coming into downtown Portland.” (Washington Times, October 14, 2018)
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I posted the video 'Portland Antifa Violence Against Senior Citizens (Video)' to the blog on October 9, 2018. If you haven't seen the video I encourage you to watch it and see how groups like Antifa are interacting with the community at large.
Police have an extraordinarily difficult job in these cases, balancing the rights of groups and individuals to protest and exercise their 1st Amendment rights in a public forum against the rights of the public in general to travel freely on the public streets and be free of threats and harassment from protest groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter.
Mayor Wheeler says that you should feel completely safe coming to downtown Portland...
No, Mr. Wheeler, I don't think that this is the case! Downtown Portland is not a safe place to visit. These extremist groups pose a very real threat to anyone in the downtown area. In fact some label Antifa as a domestic terrorist group.
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