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Wednesday, November 11, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Police vote sparks
vandalism in Portland
By Gillian Flaccus
Associated Press
PORTLAND (AP) 4
People in Portland threw
flares and paint-filled bal-
loons at the house of a city
commissioner for Oregon9s
largest city after he cast the
deciding vote against cutting
$18 million from the city9s
police budget, authorities
said.
The vandalism hap-
pened late Thursday night
after 60 people protesting
Commissioner Dan Ryan9s
vote marched to his home.
Some in the crowd
smashed a window and broke
planters, prompting police to
declare a riot that allows offi-
cers to use more aggressive
than normal police tactics.
Two people were arrested.
It was the fourth time that
this week that Ryan9s home
was targeted, the Multnomah
County Sheriff9s Department
said in a statement. The three
other times happened in the
run-up to the divisive vote.
The crowd also attacked
the police union headquar-
ters, a frequent target of
protest activity, and set the
doors of City Hall on fire.
The blaze was quickly extin-
guished by a private security
firm and is under investiga-
tion as an arson, authorities
said.
Mayor Ted Wheeler, who
voted against the police
budget cuts, strongly con-
demned the events and said
violence should never be
used to <silence the voices of
others.=
<Last night9s criminal
destruction and attack on
Commissioner Ryan9s home
are reprehensible. Violence,
criminal destruction and
intimidation are unaccept-
able and will not be toler-
ated,< Wheeler said Friday.
<Those responsible must be
found, investigated and pros-
ecuted to the fullest extent of
the law.=
In a statement issued late
Friday, Ryan said the protest-
ers coming to his home used
<the exact tactics they claim
to be railing against 4 bully-
ing and intimidation.=
<I ask that they be
accountable to one another
4 and think before they
act,= he wrote.
Protests over policing
and racial injustice have
roiled Portland for five
months since the killing of
George Floyd by a white
Minneapolis police officer.
Protesters are demand-
ing $50 million in cuts to the
police budget 4 with the
funds shifted to the Black
community, assistance with
food and housing during the
pandemic and the homeless
crisis. Some want the depart-
ment defunded completely.
C ity C ommissio n e rs
already slashed nearly $16
million in June, eliminating
funding for school resources
officers, transit police and a
gun violence reduction team.
The department has also had
its nearly $230 million bud-
get cut as part of an overall
belt-tightening due to the
pandemic.
Protesters9 concerns about
an overly aggressive police
force, police accountability
and police funding were at
the heart of a close mayoral
election.
Wheeler eked out a vic-
tory despite a strong chal-
lenge from a political new-
comer, Sarah Iannarone.
She supported police cuts
of $50 million and drew on
the energy of the near-nightly
protests to significantly boost
her double-digit deficit in the
polls but lost with 41 per-
cent of the vote compared to
Wheeler9s 46 percent.
The rest of the mayoral
election votes went to write-
in candidates including a
Black Lives Matter activist
who was eliminated in the
May primary, just weeks
before Floyd9s killing.
The Nugget Newspaper Crossword
By Jacqueline E. Mathews, Tribune News Service
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