PORTLAND, Ore. — For the ninth straight night, huge demonstrations across Portland continued. People gathered to protest the death of George Floyd, the Minneapolis man who died in police custody after an officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, and other police brutalities and racial injustices.
Portland joins many other cities across the country in demonstrations.
As with nights before, thousands gathered at Revolution Hall to march across Portland. Another group gathered at Terry Schrunk Plaza to protest police brutality across the nation.
On Saturday, the group at Revolution Hall marched to Irving Park, instead of downtown as it had nights before. The group remained peaceful and began to break up at about 9 p.m.
Across the river, around 9:30 p.m. Portland police tweeted that a group of hundreds had gathered in front of the Justice Center.
It was a familiar scene; for the past several nights peaceful protests have turned into an unlawful assembly and clashes with police. At around 10:50 p.m. Saturday police declared the group gathered by the Justice Center an unlawful assembly and requested that they leave the area heading southbound.
Police said people were throwing things over the fence and attempting to use bolt cutters to cut into the fence.
In an attempt to be more transparent about its process, Portland Police Bureau let some media behind the fence line at the Justice Center. The bureau was also streaming as a crowd of hundreds protested on the other side.
Watch: Sky 8 and police video show both sides of the fence (Warning: graphic language)
Despite repeated warnings to leave, people continued to throw water bottles, balloons full of paint and other items over the fence. Police began dispersing the protesters with crowd control tactics at about 11:30 p.m., 40 minutes after the gathering was declared an unlawful assembly.
The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office said a deputy was injured when someone threw a commercial-grade firework on the steps of the Justice Center.
At around 12:30 a.m. on Sunday, Police said they were arresting those refusing to leave the area. Morgan Romero was on scene and reported seeing groups of people leave the area or at least disperse into downtown as police continued messaging about leaving the unlawful assembly.
By 1 a.m. police said there had been several arrests and most of the crowd had left downtown Portland.
On Friday night a similar situation arose, thousands of people marched from Revolution Hall to peacefully protest in Waterfront Park. A group was also at the Justice Center and clashed with police. Eventually tear gas was deployed to disperse the crowd. It is unclear whether the tear gas was deployed only by the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, or also by the Portland Police Bureau, KGW has reached out for clarification.
On Saturday, Mayor Ted Wheeler announced that he has instructed Portland Police to only use CS gas, or tear gas, if lives are in danger and there are no other choices to disperse the crowd. However, in his statement via email, there was no clarification on who would make the decision on what is considered life threatening or what other steps should be taken before tear gas is deployed. KGW has reached out for clarification.
Over a loudspeaker police declared the gathering an unlawful assembly and that demonstrators should leave the area. This clash this law enforcement happened long after thousands of people had gone home after peacefully protesting for hours.
The Portland Police Bureau reported that at least 50 arrests were made.