Portland, OR: Community Self-Defense Against Patriot Prayer

Rose City Antifa, Portland Stands United Against Hate (A coalition of 70+ Portland area organizations), Queer Liberation Front, and hundreds of other Portland-area residents joined together to stand against the group Patriot Prayer, a group known for collaborating and marching with white-supremacists and neo-Nazi affiliated groups. Patriot Prayer also marched with Jeremy Christian, who later murdered two in a racist attack and injured another on Portland’s MAX light rail transit.

Portland Police, under threat of arrest, kept protesters at bay so Patriot Prayer could enter the Waterfront Park uncontested. After protesters broke down barriers Patriot Prayer members were told by Portland officers to leave the area for their own safety. While fleeing with police protection Patriot Prayer were chased to their vehicles and covered in silly string.

During the melee Police made several arrests including a particularly brutal one where officers pulled the victims hair, shoved her face into the sidewalk, and made it difficult for her to breathe. One officer shoved a legal observer working with the National Lawyer’s Guild backwards over bicycles after noticing him documenting the brutal arrest on his cell phone.

After the arrests had finished Portland Stands United Against Hate and local labor unions led a march through downtown beginning with the chant “When people of color are under attack, what do we do? Stand up fight back!” and continued with “Nazis OUT! Nazis OUT!”, both chants aimed at the white-supremacists they just chased out of town.

Patriot Prayer later traveled to and rallied in Vancouver, Washington, where a participant in their rally tried to run down protesters with his truck, a close-call that is reminiscent of the murder by a white nationalist in Charlottesville last month at a similar gathering of racists and nationalists.