Where is destroying private property, throwing bricks, and setting things on fire in that sentence? Let’s call a spade a spade.
Edit:
And just so I’m not misinterpreted, I am completely against excessive force by police. Both sides are wrong and the author of this piece conveniently leaves that out.
Bad actors from eastern Oregon, a heavily red and still pretty racist part of the state, would come into otherwise peaceful protests and cause property damage so police would be able to use greater force. It's a very effective way to get a protest re-labeled as a riot.
Remember, Oregon banned black people as a way of dealing with the Civil War. [1]. Portland is a liberal island in a sea of of red, hence why it's become such a friction point.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_black_exclusion_laws
I’m sure soon the police will claim that the bad police officers are just non-police dressed up.
Of course it’s not everyone. Mobs are idiots. But it’s not no one and the approach works, so it shouldn’t be ignored.
To be clear, I am not taking a centrist "both sides" position. I definitely think the vast majority of the violence and destruction was carried out by BLM and Antifa, in Portland and everywhere else that these riots occurred. But I won't go so far as to say that there were absolutely no saboteurs. I believe there were a handful of documented cases of them.
But this is frequently done when curfews are enacted. They are put in place and limit civil rights of everyone to control a few bad people.
Edit for clarification: It is not my duty to surrender my rights and accept collective guilt for another's crimes in order to make things easier on government agents.
That’s like saying “I’m not part of this lynch mob, I was just standing next to the tree protesting peacefully. Innocent until proven guilty.”
For me, if I’m protesting peacefully and 20% of the crowd starts smashing stuff or burning cars, I’m going to split and disavow them.
This isn’t your neighbor who lives next to you that you can’t do anything about.
In my city, a peaceful protest turned violent and started smashing stuff. I’m not sure how I avoid that if I was trying to peacefully protest.