Portland Blockade

From Portland IMC:

Today, fifty anarchists arrived at five p.m with the intention of taking and holding space at the intersection where the death of James Chasse occurred. At some point during the night, a creative and sneaky comrade had changed the street sign at the intersection to read “James Ave,” a tribute to the lost community member who was killed at the hands of the Portland Police in 2006.

Immediately, individuals began to break into affinity groups and carry out the tasks they had agreed to do together. While people began stringing caution tape across the intersection, others grabbed wooden pallets and began to stack them together to create a barricade. Banners were hung across these impromptu structures. Others grabbed trash cans, cardboard and other reinforcements. Soon, a dumpster was reclaimed from a near by business and rolled into the intersection and then overturned. Another dumpster soon followed. These dumpsters soon became drum sets, and voices rose to greet them with chants of “another man is deceased, who’s to blame, the police.”

Crowds begin to gather, curious to see why people are demonstrating here. Someone explains that this is the intersection where James Chasse was killed by the Portland Police Department, a man who was a singer and poet, beaten to death by our “boys in blue.” It took the Portland Police Department twenty five minutes to respond. The Portland Police Department deployed roughly fifty bicycle cops and fifteen motorcycle cops. It was also noted that many plain clothes police officers were seen casing the area. The police blocked off two streets and watched while anarchists chanted, spoke and danced inside their barricades. It looked as if the police were very unsure as to how to proceed, and understood that they were being watched by almost two hundred by-standers. The march was able to disperse safely at six p.m, as decided. The action happened on their terms, just like it was intended to. The downtown area was still swarming with police at 6:15 p.m. So far, there have been no reports of arrest.