Portland protesters yell 'Nazi' at woman wearing swastika armband, she replies 'didn’t say anything racist'
PORTLAND, OREGON: A group of protesters confronted a woman wearing a swastika armband, yelling at her to "take it off" and calling her a "nazi" as she insisted that she did not say anything "racist."
The confronted that took place on Wednesday, August 5, at night during another night of demonstrations in the city was caught on video. It showed a group of black-clad protesters wearing masks yelling at a middle-aged woman, who was standing on the doorstep of her house in East Portland. “Take it off! Take it off, you Nazi!” some of them yelled, pointing at a red swastika armband on her left arm.
As demonstrators point green lasers and a spotlight in her face she screamed, “I didn’t say anything racist!” At one point, the unidentified woman shoves a protester and demands, “Get off my property!” after two of them charge at her and demand an explanation behind her choice of arm accessory. Eventually, a man in a blue T-shirt warns her “Go back inside your house,” if she does not want to get “f—ked up,” and tries to open the door and tries to push her inside. When she tried to resist, he tries to rip off her armband. This sends her scrambling inside.
Although she was inside the house, the protesters kept yelling, "Go inside now!" She looked down to point out the fact that she was already inside and screamed back, "I am, you idiot!"
You can watch the video below:
“It was pretty surreal to see that armband,” Laura Jedeed, who filmed the encounter, told Storyful. “You can see from the video that no one wanted to beat up some lady, but they needed her to stop being a Nazi.” She added that after she stopped filming the video, someone threw something at the woman’s window, which was cheered on by the group.
On the same night, a riot formed outside Portland police’s East Precinct. The crowd rammed the front doors with 2-by-4s and lit a fire. "Some people in the group began blocking the entryway to the East Precinct garage located at 737 Southeast 106th Avenue. While the group blocked the street, many of those in the group began shining green lasers and other lights at officers who were positioned on the East Precinct roof... A member in the group was seen attempting to tear the surveillance camera off of the front doors of East Precinct. Other people in the group began spray painting the camera as well as the front doors of the precinct. Lots of members of the group were seen wearing helmets and carrying shields," a press release from the Government of Portland stated.
The police said that the group continued with their criminal behavior despite a number of warnings from the police to refrain from violent demonstrations. "People began tearing off the boards that were protecting the glass windows of East Precinct. Several people in the group began to ram a large 2 by 4 piece of wood into the front glass doors in an effort to shatter them. Other members of the group slammed different heavy large objects into the glass doors as well. The objects included large rocks... At 10 p.m., the front doors of East Precinct were barricaded and a fire was started using plywood and an accelerant," the release said.
At the end, the police had to deploy tear gas and it was reported that several officers were nearly run over by a truck associated with the group. "At 10:06 p.m., officers began to disperse the crowd. While dispersing the crowd, officers were hit with projectiles and commercial-grade fireworks. Because of life safety issues created by members in the group, CS gas and crowd control munitions were used. While dispersing efforts continued, a truck associated with the group attempted to run over several officers," the release added.