Listen to this articleUS President Donald Trump’s supporters and protesters clashed in the streets on Saturday in Portland, Oregon. The incident left one person killed and initiated new violence in the state. Point to be noted that there was a large caravan of supporters of President Trump and protesters in support of racial justice. The clashes came just a day after the mayor of Portland Ted Wheeler sent a letter to the president again declining his offer to send federal law enforcement to the city. President Trump retweeted a supporter’s post on Sunday morning in a stream of more than 90 tweets and retweets. He said, “Ted Wheeler is the useless f***ing idiot and comic relief that gets everyone killed in every disaster movie. Tone down the language, but TRUE”!
It is noteworthy that Portland has been the site of nightly protests for more than three months since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Many of them end in vandalism and violence, and hundreds of demonstrators have been arrested by local and federal law enforcement since late May. The AP reports that it wasn’t clear if the shooting was linked to fights that broke out as the pro-Trump caravan of about 600 vehicles was confronted by counter-demonstrators in the city’s downtown. In the two hours following the shooting, protesters gathered downtown and there were sporadic fighting and vandalism, police stated. Some gave speeches in Lownsdale Square Park before the protest petered out. Ten people were arrested.
The pro-Trump caravan had arrived downtown just as a protest planned for Saturday was getting underway. This was the third Saturday in a row that Trump supporters have rallied in the city. President Trump and other speakers at last week’s convention evoked a violent, dystopian future if Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden wins in November. They pointed to Portland as a cautionary tale for what would be in store for Americans. Democrats have also pointed out that the unrest is happening under his watch and have alleged him of repeatedly trying to inflame the situation to help his re-election campaign. Mayor Wheeler argues in his letter to the president that when federal law enforcement officers came to Portland in July they made the situation far worse.
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