PORTLAND, Ore. — Demonstrators rallied outside Revolution Hall and at Sunnyside School Park Saturday afternoon.
At one of the gatherings in support of Palestine, they gathered to call for the government to stop sending arms and aid to Israel.
At another, they advocated for workers' rights, as well as Palestine, and other issues that have been hot topics post-election.
“The results of this election are workers are even more precarity, and that's why we're out here fighting to change those conditions. We're also fighting to end the idea and push back against the idea that there should be mass deportation, that there should be abortion bans nationally, and then the idea that, basically, that workers deserve less. We're not accepting that. We're fighting for more," said Brian Denning, the co-chair of Portland Democratic Socialists of America.
He expressed there is still dissatisfaction with the Democrats.
“We believe that basically, under the previous administration, food insecurity doubled (and) child poverty increased. Working people were clearly unhappy with this election and didn't want either of these candidates, in my opinion," he said.
“We've been here before ... in 2016, we experienced the same kind of sadness, maybe despair, maybe losing some hope about what's going to happen in the future," said Emily Golden-Fields, who was the emcee at the rally at Revolution Hall.
She said some are blaming the most vulnerable people in society for issues that they should not be blamed for.
"It's not immigrants, it's not trans people, it's not the most vulnerable people in society. It's the oligarchs who are literally stealing from the rest of us," she said.
Some speakers at the rally for Palestine said they believe an attack on one is an attack on all.
They also said problems overseas can also translate to certain issues here, too.
“We tend to believe that these things can never happen to us, right? We tend to believe that atrocities that are committed halfway around the world are alien, that we're not impacted, and what we're seeing now is that we are impacted. It's the same hate that is causing restrictions on rights and freedoms here," said Jon Mroz, a community organizer and speaker at the rally.
“Palestine's a human rights issue — it's like trans rights, it's like gay rights, it's like African American rights, it's a civil rights issue at the end of the day. And we just want our freedom," he continued. “I'm personally, very progressive. I believe in women's reproductive rights. I believe in the rights of people to marry whoever they want, people to live however they want. And I don't want to see those rights get taken away here, either.”
Both demonstrations remained peaceful, and the Portland Police Bureau attended both. While officers were present, so were Event Liaison Officers.
While this isn't a new program and used to be called Demonstration Liaison Officers, Event Liaison Officers now have refined their roles and received extra training based on best practices for handling demonstrations like these.
“We'll go in, and we'll just try to find out who is a person who has influence over the group or a leader for the group, so we can talk to them and find out, 'Hey, here's what we can offer you,' and try to find out what their goals today are," explained Sergeant Dan Dimatteo, a liaison officer.
"If it's a march, a lot of times we’ll ask, okay, if you know a route, we can either help facilitate maybe a street that they can use or a good direction for them to go, so they're not going to be involved in traffic," he continued. "Or even if there's counter-protests, we can help steer away from that kind of stuff."
Officers volunteer to be a part of the program, and said they are not there to enforce but to facilitate free speech.
“We're not here in an enforcement role at all. So, if — as the protest is going on — we see some low-level things that don't need immediate intervention, we would let that go on; that could be addressed by another officer on a bike, another officer in a car, another officer somewhere else," Dimatteo continued.
Still, demonstrators KGW spoke with emphasized they planned to remain peaceful.
“If people or police try to come and agitate, we don't want to pay them any mind. We are here for Palestine, and we have a goal. So, we are here to exercise our rights and meet that goal," said Kacey DeSantis, an organizer with Portland for Palestine.
“I'm personally not here to throw bricks through windows or to cause any destruction or to cause anybody any harm. In fact, I'm here because I want to stop people from getting hurt," said Mroz.