ELECTION 2020

[Rootilda]

Dr. Sharon Meieran is a commissioner for Multnomah County, where Portland is located. She spoke to Yahoo News by phone Monday evening before the latest round of protests started.

You spent the weekend out among the protesters. What’s your on-the-ground report?

It was very interesting to be there in person. You read all the accounts in various media outlets, and I was worried I was walking into a war zone and it absolutely was not like that — it was not like that anywhere in Portland. There was a large group of protesters there, marching and protesting peacefully, and a lot of feeling that we’re in this together and we’re exercising our constitutional right to assemble and speak out.

I was there Saturday and Sunday and the crowd was by-and-large very peaceful, chanting. And then out of the blue there was, the federal forces came out, and without any warning, without any discrimination of targets, just started throwing canisters of teargas into the street. There was a lot of crowd dispersal but there was also regrouping, and I think Sunday there was an even larger crowd — seemed like there was even more of the teargas was used and even more people that dispersed with that and came back around and still gathered.

https://news.yahoo.com/portland-protests...30188.html