Left-wing protests in Portland have caused roughly $2.3 million in damage to federal buildings since they broke out over the summer.
Portland was the epicenter of summer protests which included frequent riots, vandalism and clashes with law enforcement. The two months of near-nightly unrest centered on a federal courthouse downtown.
President Trump urged the city’s liberal Mayor Ted Wheeler to allow him to deploy federal troops to help quell protests, but the mayor denied the president’s offer.
Protesters and rioters gathered around the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse and in the city almost every night for weeks, feuding with police and counterprotesters and led the Trump administration to send federal officers to fortify the building after repeated vandalism.
The nightly standoffs with police involved graffiti, fires, broken windows and commercial grade firecrackers, as well as Molotov cocktails.
Cleanup at the courthouse and four other government buildings has cost more than $2 million, U.S. Attorney for Oregon Billy J. Williams told Oregon Live. And the total could continue to rise with repairs still underway.
According to Fox News, other damaged buildings were the Edith Green-Wendall Wyatt Federal Building, the Gus J. Solomon U.S. Courthouse, the Pioneer Courthouse, and the city’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building.
Since Biden took office on January 20, Antifa marchers continue to protest against police brutality and racial injustice, blasting the new president along with new anti-Biden graffiti.
Police said rioters carrying stun guns, pepper ball guns, and fireworks scuffled with police and again damaged the ICE building, according to Fox News. Photographs show marchers carrying signs with phrases including, “We don’t want Biden—we want revenge!” and “We are ungovernable.”
They also allegedly damaged the state’s Democratic Party headquarters.
“Peaceful protests are a cornerstone of our democracy but smashing windows is not protesting and neither is looting,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said last month. “Actions like these are totally unacceptable.”