January 14, 2015
M ARTIN L UTHER K ING J R .
Page 7
2015 special edition
New Leaders Emerge in Struggle for Police Reforms
Hip hop artist
faces down
riot police
M IKE B IVINS
P ORTLAND O BSERVER
BY
CONTRIBUTOR
Fed up with police brutality,
Portland activists brought the
downtown mall to a standstill. It
was Dec. 6 and after having
their say, and making their point,
the large crowd of people exited
Pioneer Place peacefully. I was
observing the protest, and coin-
cidentally ended up taking the
same route as Glenn Waco, a
young activist in Portland’s civil
rights struggle.
Waco was leading the way
for one column of protesters
through the food court, to the
escalator and up to a ground
level exit. He was out in front,
and for a moment, it was just
Waco, myself and a white
woman who was not a part of
the protest.
“Are you filming this?” she
asks, looking at me clutching my
camera and cellphone.
Like Martin Luther King Jr. before him, Portland activist Glenn Waco is on the front lines in the
battle against racial inequality, leading members of his generation and others to protest, and then
face a violent response from police.
I reply that I am not strictly
filming but that at times I am.
“Keep an eye on him,” she
says of Waco. “He’s a leader—
the police are going to be target-
ing him.”
The woman probably thought
that because Waco is a 6 foot 5
brother equipped with a mega-
phone and an assertive person-
ality, he wasn’t hard for the Port-
land Police to miss.
Little did the woman know
that about a week prior, at an-
other demonstration, news cov-
erage and video made it look like
police were going out of their
way to target Waco when flash
grenades were used to break up
a Don’t Shoot PDX protest.
Like Martin Luther King Jr.
before him, Waco is on the front
lines in the battle against racial
inequality, leading members of
his generation and others to pro-
test, and then face violence at
the hands of the police.
“I was pissed,” said Waco,
about the explosives police used.
“I locked eyes with the officer
that was giving the commands.”
The police officer was telling
the crowd to get back, and he
could see Waco was also telling
the crowd to move back. Not
because the officer was asking,
but so the crowd could move
away from the line of riot police
and get back on route to taking
the streets and marching.
“I’m doing that… I’m in the
middle. There’s this big gap be-
tween the officers and protest-
ers. So I’m telling people…Yo’
let’s move back,” Waco said.
But the frontline wasn’t budg-
ing and instead took a step to-
wards the line of police. The
next thing Waco knows, he sees
“lights on the ground. I’m think-
ing they’re shooting! They’re all
going off by my legs!” and ma-
terial from the explosion stings
Waco when it hits his leg.
Police and other media ac-
counts say only two flash gre-
nades were lobbed, but Waco
estimates there were at least six
continued
on page 13