The rioting in Portland has gone on for more than 50 days and shows few signs of winding down.
An organizer of the ongoing rioting in Portland says the anarchist movement is aiming for the “abolition of the United States as we know it” and referred to the United States as “stolen land.”
Lilith Sinclair, who announced herself as an “Afro indigenous non-binary local organizer,” said on Friday that the anarchists are intent on bringing about “not just the abolition of the police state, but also the United States as we know it.”
Following Sinclair's speech, reports say that:
- Rioters attempted to trap federal officers inside the Portland Federal Courthouse and Justice Center while launching explosives at the building.
- The violent mob also allegedly tied a man to a fence and beat him and held a street preacher at gun point before brutalizing him and physically removing him from the demonstration, according to a witness at the scene who spoke to livestreamers.
- Rioters torched the city’s police union headquarters Saturday night.
During a conference call with local media on Friday, Wheeler claimed that rhetoric from President Donald Trump and other top government officials, along with intervention from federal law enforcement officers, is to blame for the violence in the city.
"The feds came in, on the heels of some really inflammatory public messaging coming out of Washington, D.C., from the president directly, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, they blew the whole thing back up again," Wheeler claimed.
"So, in one day, we saw the numbers escalate, we saw new people coming to Portland from out of state," he added. "This whole situation is now blowing up as a result of the tactics being used by the federal government."
A reporter on the conference call pointed out that local officials have failed to stop the ongoing violence that has plagued Portland for nearly two months.
"The federal government says that they wouldn't have had to go into the city if city leaders had gotten a handle on the riots," the reporter said. "You say that we can handle it better than the feds can, but we haven't heard or seen a plan to stop the vandalism or the riots, even prior to the federal government, or federal officers, getting into town."
Wheeler told anti-Trump CNN: "The tactics that the Trump administration is using on the streets of Portland are abhorrent. People are being literally scooped off the street into unmarked vans, rental cars, apparently. They are being denied probable cause. And they are denied due process. They don’t even know who’s pulling them into the vans. The people aren’t identifying themselves. And as far as I can see, this is completely unconstitutional.”
On Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said federal police were “kidnapping” protesters, and likened the arrests to a “banana republic.”
Free Press International
