15 minute read
AWOL Magazine
PORTLAND IS BURNING
One summer, two causes, thousands of Oregonians; how civil unrest and wildfires shook this West Coast city.
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Written by McKenzie Beard Art by Rojeen Azadi and Caroline Lougee Photos by Cory Elia
Summer in Portland, Oregon, is traditionally filled with weekend family camping trips, Shakespeare in the park and artisan food truck grub — but 2020 ushered in a wave of civic activism for the city’s residents that monopolized the season.
While loud displays of advocacy have been a hallmark for decades, Portlanders faced unprecedented challenges when their community was caught in the crosshairs of two critical issues in just one summer: police brutality and climate change. ‘Do You Think I’m Afraid to be Arrested?’
Cozca Itzpapalotl, a local activist, gripped her iPhone and hit record as five men clad in riot gear approached her. A firework exploded overhead as the police officers moved to tackle Itzpapalotl to the ground, and a baton struck her directly in the face. The demonstrators around her ducked underneath makeshift shields fashioned out of garbage can lids and pool noodles to protect themselves from the cascading sparks.
Projectiles flew, teargas burned and rubber bullets from federal agents’ guns pelted Black Lives Matter protesters outside of the Portland federal courthouse building. The demonstrators roared: “This is what democracy looks like!”
On May 25, 2020, Minneapolis Police arrested George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, after convenience store employees alleged that he purchased a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. Security footage reveals the horrors that ensued while Floyd was held in police custody.
In eight minutes and 46 seconds, a white police officer murdered a Black man in America — a frequent cautionary tale and an outcome of what protesters say is systemic racism and white supremacy embedded into U.S. police forces.
Itzpapalotl estimated that since she joined the Black Lives Matter demonstrations on May 27, she has only missed 10 days of protesting. That’s approximately 150 days of nearly uninterrupted civic activism in the streets of Portland. But Itzpapalotl wasn’t alone.
Floyd’s untimely death, among others, ignited protests against police brutality across the country and around the world that drew crowds larger than ever seen. Polls from Civis Analytics, a data science firm that works with businesses and Democratic campaigns, estimate that between 15 million and 26 million people participated in the demonstrations in the summer of 2020, making it the largest organized protest in U.S. history.
Portland remains one of the whitest cities in America, with 77.1% of residents being caucasion according to the U.S. Census, as a result of the state’s deeply racist history. In part, this is due to the state’s original constitution in 1859 that explicitly forbade Black people from living in its borders, making it the only state in the union that did so. But Itzpapalotl said that mainstream media’s tendency to portray the majority of Portland Black Lives Matter activists as white is a narrative she disputes.
“By saying that, the media is erasing all of the Black, Chicano, Latinx and Indigenous activists that are doing work in our communities,” said Itzpapalotl.
But what started as peaceful marches quickly dissolved into chaos, and attention shifted to Portland as riots in the city’s notoriously white and liberal streets were met with federal force.
Cory Elia, a multimedia journalist based in Portland, has been covering the protests since they began in early June. Elia said that during the first month of uninterrupted Black Lives Matter demonstrations, most standoffs were between civilian protesters and officers with the Portland Police Bureau.
PORTLAND IS BURNING
When federal officers were sent to the city in early July to protect the federal courthouse, the protests were brought to “a whole other level,” Elia said.
On July 4, the Trump Administration and the Department of Homeland Security deployed federal agents clad in riot gear and military garb to patrol the streets of Portland, a move that does not require permission or request by the local government per federal law. Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf said the protests in Portland around the federal courthouse were “an attack against America” by “lawless anarchists who destroy and desecrate property.”
However, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, an NGO specializing in crisis mapping, reported that 83% of Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Oregon during the summer of 2020 involved “no serious harm to people or damage to property.”
Post-deployment of federal troops, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project found that violent demonstrations in Portland rose from 17% to over 42%.
“When the feds showed up, it was turned directly into a war zone,” Elia said. “Feds going after protesters and indiscriminately hitting the press and legal observers.”
According to ACLED, the introduction of federal agents in Portland correlated with a 10% increase in “violent demonstrations” at Black Lives Matter events.
Videos circulated on social media showed federal agents roaming the city’s streets, at times several blocks from their jurisdiction surrounding the federal courthouse, in unmarked uniforms and vehicles.
Itzpapalotl said that the first time she was arrested by Portland police over the summer she was heading home from a long day of attending demonstrations near the federal courthouse. When officers began to taunt Itzpapalotl and threatened to arrest her for her involvement in the protests, she retorted, “Do you think I’m afraid to be arrested?” Elia was arrested by police June 30, along with independent journalists Lesley McLam, also with KBOO, and Justin Yau, a freelance journalist who covered the Hong Kong protests in 2019. After his arrest, Elia posted on Twitter he did not plan to return to covering the protests. But, “journalistic FOMO,” or fear of missing out, brought him back. “I figured the more cameras out there, the more press actually reporting, the less likely it is everybody to get treated this way,” he said. “So I thought it was my duty to get the story out and try to provide extra eyes on the situation.” The daily protests are also unlike any movement Elia has experienced or seen before especially in terms of the ammunition and tear gas used. Prior protests have used these devices, but not in the volume used today, Elia said.
“Tear gas feels like poison,” Itzpapalotl said. “Your eyes sting, you can’t breathe. It makes you feel like you’re going to die.”
Portlanders sharply criticized the use of non-lethal weapons against peaceful protesters by Portland Police and federal agents. “I remember the first time the feds came out of the courthouse shooting,” Itzpapalotl said. “And couldn’t help but laugh because there wasn’t even anyone to be shooting at.”
Elia and Itzpapalotl both recalled that there was usually no effort to disperse
“I had just gotten hit with a baton, shot with tear gas, and I had flashbangs thrown at me, so I already had been through this gauntlet. An arrest was nothing compared to what I just been through,” Itzpapalotl said.
crowds without ammunition. “They’ll shoot when they don’t need to, it’s bizarre,” Itzpapalotl said. “Then they’ll shoot people who aren’t even protesting or people who are just driving by in their cars. They always seemed less trained in crowd control, less experienced and very trigger happy.”
According to an internal memo from the Department of Homeland Security obtained by The New York Times, the federal agents deployed in Portland were not specifically trained in riot control or mass demonstrations. Rather, officers sent to the city were from the Border Patrol Tactical Unit — essentially the equivalent of the SWAT team for the Border Patrol Special Operations Group. The team is trained in undocumented immgrant sweeps and drug smuggling organizations, a far cry from protesters on city streets.
As a result of the Border Patrol Special Tactical Unit agents and Portland police, the continuous use of tear gas in the spaces surrounding the federal courthouse was so severe that it began impacting the health and safety of those who live and work in the area.
In an article by the Willamette Week, journalist Gary Thill reported that more than 60 inmates housed in the Multnomah County Detention Center, which is next door to the courthouse, were inadvertently teargassed after the substance seeped into the center’s ventilation system.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, was tear-gassed in July after visiting protesters in front of the federal courthouse. Wheeler received criticism from protesters for failing to curb the Portland Police Bureau’s treatment of demonstrators, while others felt the mayor didn’t do enough to stop the vandalism and violence downtown.
Protesters said that corruption runs deep in local politics, and alleged that many city officials and members of the Portland Police Bureau have connections with alt-right and white supremacist organizations in the city.
“You can watch somebody if they’re sitting there [in] like military garments, camo, some kind of American flag attire who just completely gets left alone by officers,” Elia said. “But there could be a protester right next door, clad in black, and that’s their target, as opposed to the guy next door and both can be doing nothing. And I’ve seen it. It’s happened too in front of me and multiple times.”
In 2019, an investigation was launched into improper misconduct of a member of the Portland Police Bureau after hundreds of text messages were released that revealed a friendly relationship between an officer and right-wing organizer Joey Gibson. The texts, obtained by Willamette Week through a public records request, found that Lt. Jeff Niiya talked to and coordinated with the founder of Patriot Prayer, a farright pro-Trump men’s organization.
An independent investigation cleared Niiya of misconduct and collusion later that year. But this is just one of many incidents that protesters say is indicative of an inappropriate relationship between law enforcement and the political group.
Conservative ideologies play into this double standard of the perception of the demonstrations and treatment of protestors by law enforcement, Elia said, which can also be seen in many conservative media outlets’ coverage of the protests and has attached a negative connotation between the left-wing protests and violence.
“They’re not terrorists. These people are just protesters,” Elia said.
Both Elia and Itzpapalotl are still attending Portland protests most nights and plan to continue.
After President Donald Trump said in an August press conference that the “entire city is ablaze all the time,” right-wing media outlets pushed the narrative that Portland was being burned to the ground by dangerous rioters. This was disputed by Lt. Rich Chatman, a spokesman for Portland Fire & Rescue.
But as protests continued throughout the summer and into early fall, the phrase “Portland is burning” would take on a new meaning as a wildfire season unlike anything the state had ever seen loomed on its horizon.
The Oregon sky hung overhead, a festering red that cast a shadow over the state’s 4.2 million residents. Thick flecks of ash left a fine layer of soot over every surface, a site reminiscent of the blast that rocked the Portland metro area after Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980. But it wasn’t 1980, and there were no active volcanoes to blame.
Politicians said it was a shock. The press called the event “unprecedented.” The flames creeping closer to Oregonians front doors each day were unlike anything they had ever seen in the state.
Morgan Romero was making her way home from a vacation in Washington state when she first saw the smoke. When she checked a news app on her cellphone, she realized she was surrounded by small wildfires popping up too quickly to count.
“The entire time I was driving, I kept thinking to myself: this is going to be devastating,” she said.
Romero, a journalist for NBC’s Portland-based news station KGWTV, reported live from the site of the Riverside Fire in Clackamas County. As a blazing 36-mile-wide wall of fire slowly enclosed the city, Romero spoke to Oregonians. Her message: leave while they still can.
Communities outside of hazardous zones began hosting emergency shelters in churches, baseball stadiums and local fairgrounds to support the 40,000 Oregonians who were forced to evacuate their homes.
“These poor people were sleeping in their cars with their animals, and they had no idea whether or not their homes were lost,” Romero said. More than 7,500 firefighters were called to battle the unprecedented Oregon wildfires, including individuals from local fire departments, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Oregon National Guard and even several inmate crews who were paid $9.80 per day for their lifethreatening efforts.
While reporting on the Riverside fire in Clackamas county, Romero spoke with firefighters taking on the flames.
“At one point the firefighters were protecting these people down at this lake and they saw the fires coming in from both sides,” Romero said. “They told me that in that moment they thought, ‘We’re trapped and we’re going to die in here.’”
As Oregon burned, its residents’ health was put in peril. The Air Quality Index measures the level of pollutants in the air and how dangerous those levels are to human health, per guidelines determined by the Environmental Protection Agency. The wildfire’s broad impact caused Portland to be ranked as the No. 1 city with the worst air quality in the world. As a result, health officials in Oregon reported that one out of every 10 people visiting the emergency room has had asthma-like conditions due to the smoke.
EPA criteria considers any AQI above 150 to be unhealthy for people, with any above 300 being considered a “health warning of emergency conditions.” Up until now, the EPA has not provided health and safety recommendations for AQIs higher than 500, as they’re off the scale.
On Sept. 11, 2020, Portland, Oregon’s air quality was reported to be as high as 758.
Oregonians claim that they didn’t have enough time to prepare for the wildfires that scorched the state during the summer of 2020— but what if they did? What if scientists have been warning the public about these exact fires, for decades?
While global temperatures begin to creep upwards and unusual weather patterns intensify, politicians in Washington have simultaneously rolled back climate change policies, slashed funding to the Environmental Protection Agency and left international agreements centered around the environment.
All signs point towards wildfires such as those that have scorched the west as the new normal.
Even some native Oregonians contested new climate change legislation, with Republican lawmakers staging a walkout over a 2019 cap-and-trade proposal by Democrats that would limit carbon emissions in the state.
Davia Palmeri, a conservation biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, confirmed these wildfires are unlike anything any living Oregonian would be able to remember.
“In the new modern age of science,we are experiencing unprecedented wildfires on the western side of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon,” Palmeri said.
As a result of seven fires, 868,372 acres have been scorched across the state of Oregon over the course over several weeks. But it’s not the number of wildfires that are surprising climatologists — it’s where they are burning. Places like the Willamette Valley, an area home to Oregon’s capital city Salem on the western slope of the Cascades, have historically been much wetter than they were in 2020. Dry conditions paired with powerful and hot winds from the east created the perfect conditions for the state to burn in places they never have before. Scientists say this year’s fire season is just the beginning of a new era of the effects of climate change in the Pacific Northwest.
“We worry here in Oregon about rising temperatures and as it gets hotter it becomes dryer through evaporation,” Palmeri said. “We’re generally expecting less rainfall and changes in the time of year that rainfall occurs and all of that sets the stage for fires and the destruction of our forest ecosystems.”
As wildfires move west and begin to occur more frequently, Oregon was the second most popular moving destination in the United States after Idaho in 2019. This means more homes, and more people, are moving into fire-prone areas.
While Oregon demographics are changing, so are its physical spaces, and Palmeri believes this is because of climate change. “These fires burn at a severity and at a scale where the ecosystems being affected will go through a transition and have the potential to not be a forest anymore because it is never able to recover,” Palmeri said. “That will also create massive changes in habitat for fish and wildlife.”
It has been six months since the killing of George Floyd that sparked some of the greatest social uprisings modern society has ever seen; but for people like Itzpapalotl and Elia, the fight for police accountability and racial justice in Portland is far from over.
According to the Oregon Department of Justice, reported bias crimes in the state more than doubled between May and June. Among all reported hate crimes in Oregon this year, the most common motive for the perpetrator was race, with a majority of victims being Black people.
In an effort to hold police accountable in her community, City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who is the first Black woman to hold the position, introduced a measure to create a community oversight board for the Portland Police Bureau. The bill was passed with an approval rating of 82%, the largest win for the city’s November local election.
While flames were extinguished, Oregon emerged from the rubble of the 2020 wildfire season that killed at least nine people and destroyed more than 4,000 homes, resulting in damages totaling more than $1 billion.
Moving forward, Palmeri said that collaboration of Oregonians and local government to protect the natural heritage of Oregon is essential.
“Really, this is all about making your values known to the decision-makers who manage our public lands where a lot of these wildfires occur,” said Palmeri. “Let them know that you care about what our ecosystems look like and that they stay there.”
A community is defined by its people, and Portland is no exception. “Portland has always been a place that has had a lot of people willing to revolt against repressive powers,” said Itzpapalotl. “That’s something that I don’t think will ever change.”
McKenzie Beard (she/her/hers) is a senior studying Journalism with a minor in Women, Gender, and Sexuality studies.
