Who Are The Occupiers?

Portland, Oregon, is occupied. In the blink of an eye, Portland became a police state. Good cop became bad cop in the space of a day — specifically Nov. 13, when Portland’s formal downtown Occupation was rousted and the parks were fenced off. Since then they have been guarded 24/7 by gruff police in riot gear.

The Occupy movement called for a nationwide “Occupy the Banks” action on Nov. 17, and Portland demonstrators planned to assemble at the Steel Bridge around 8 that morning.

The police did not want to be caught off guard on this one. They proactively closed the bridge before anyone arrived. About 500 demonstrators gathered peacefully at the east end of the bridge. A few were arrested in a calm and dignified manner – so calmly, in fact, that protesters in the back of the crowd had no idea arrests had been made. During the protest on the bridge, the city’s light-rail system continued to move across the river, never interrupted or slowed by demonstrators.

But that was the east side of the bridge.

On the west side of the river, the air was markedly different. Trucks crammed with fully-equipped riot police idled along streets up and down the west side –dozens of riot police on block after block after block. Turn the corner toward the bridge and there was a row of police cars blocking access to the bridge. Move toward the bridge’s lower deck and there was a long row of cops on bikes, another squadron of riot police watching over them from a close distance.

Waiting. They were all dressed up for a riot, and … waiting. From daybreak they were ready, and waiting.

The demonstrators had no idea how many police were lined up in preparation for their arrival. Honestly, it seemed there were as many police as protesters.

And these were not just Portland police. There were cops from municipalities all around northwest Oregon, and from Washington as well – our municipal tax dollars going out of state. Brilliant.

The crowd moved across the bridge, chanting, talking, joking. They came to a spot on the waterfront and staged an impromptu rally as a gentle rain began to fall.

The demonstration swelled as the marchers moved through downtown at lunchtime. It felt like the heavy, heavy police presence brought more people out.

The demonstrators did not block traffic in the early afternoon hours. They even, for the most part, did not cross streets on the red. The only people who blocked buses and trains in the downtown transit mall were the police. Oh, there were so very many police.

Waiting.

“Take off your riot gear. We don’t see no riot here!” the crowd chanted. One lone fellow, trying desperately to get through to the stoic officers, kept shouting, “They’re screwing you too! Unite and fight back, they’re screwing you too!”

Blocks away from the crowd, truck upon truck of cops in riot gear continued to wait.

The focus moved to the Chase Bank downtown, where a number of people had planned to get arrested. That was their goal: Not to cause any damage or hurt any person, but simply to go down to Chase and occupy the bank until someone took them off to jail.

One person who woke up with that intention on Nov. 17 was Liz Nichols. She’s 20 years old, five feet tall, and Occupy Portland has given her short life a jolt of purpose. She was determined to sit in and be arrested at the Chase Bank. In the melee she became trapped in the middle of protesters, mounted cops and riot cops, and was jostled and jabbed. She shouted to an officer that she was being mistreated.

In the middle of that shout, another officer sprayed her point-blank with tear gas.

Oregonian photographer Randy Rasmussen captured that moment in a photo that should earn him a Pulitzer. (If you haven’t seen that photo yet, PLEASE click this link.)

The photo was released so quickly that Liz actually saw the picture as she was being booked at the Multnomah County Jail. The booking officer helpfully advised Liz that the next time she got pepper-sprayed, she should keep her mouth shut.

That is the advice we are tacitly being given when we see so very many riot police lining the roadways alongside a peaceful protest: Keep your mouth shut.

The dozens upon dozens of cops in riot gear waited all day for violence to break out. To call their police presence “overkill” is to grossly understate the reaction to announced protests.

Funny thing about that is, if there hadn’t been such an extraordinarily heavy-handed police presence in the streets that day, the N17 protests in Portland might well have been over by rush hour. But as it was, the crowd grew bigger and more belligerent as the bullies in riot gear proved exactly who it was they were hired to serve and protect – and it was not the people.

It wasn’t long ago that demonstrators were working with the Portland police, telling random cops they loved them. A switch was flicked on Nov. 13, and all that love and peace and good will is utterly gone. It will take a long time for the Portland police to repair their relationship with the community. Is this part an orchestrated, nationwide crackdown on this burgeoning movement? Do they really think this is the way to make the Occupy movement go away?

It won’t work. Sorry fellas, not this time. You can destroy our encampments but you cannot stop this movement. We are the 99%. Your actions are helping us find our voice.