Portland, OR: Report Back from Prison Strike March

Femmes Strike Back PDX reports from Portland about a recent march in solidarity with the prison strike that was brutally repressed by local police.

Photo via NW RASH and Femmes Strike Back PDX

The march against prison slavery last Thursday, September 13th, was small. No more than 50 people, in total. We expected a fairly low-key action with just three speakers and a short march around South Waterfront. The event, hosted by Direct Action Alliance, Occupy ICE PDX, Portland Democratic Socialists of America, and Femmes Strike Back PDX kicked off just after 6 PM with a few words from our speakers: Jacob Bureros, Olivia Katbi Smith, and Alyssa Pariah.

https://twitter.com/FemmesStrikeBac/status/1040419164639223808

We had gathered together that day to draw attention to OHSU’s practice of using prison labor through Oregon Corrections Enterprises. OCE is an established, semi-independent state agency that uses local prisons to do labor like build furniture, run call centers, and provide laundry services. They pay prisoners between $0.05 to $0.49 per hour for their work and force prisoners doing the laundry service to handle biohazards without appropriate precautions.

Just a little before 7 PM, we started marching.

We marched south along the park and stopped for a quick visit at the nearby ICE building, where the first Occupy ICE PDX camp was located. By the time we were circling back toward the park, we noticed a pair of pigtails — cop cars creeping along behind us. Whenever marchers spilled off the sidewalk even a little, police used the speaker system to barrate us. “Stay on the sidewalk. If you block traffic you will be subject to arrest.”

Finally, we walked past the stairs to the Gibbs Pedestrian bridge, where comrades had dropped a beautiful banner.

Our pigtails then stopped their cars in the street to yell at us not to block traffic. A civilian car approached, and immediately protesters on both sides of the street cheered and heckled. The cops had to get back in their cars and move the cars out of the way to let traffic through. That’s when Sergeant Jeff Niiya then walked towards a few other cops and started whispering. They casually walked around our banner, surrounded Jacob Bureros (an organizer with Direct Action Alliance) and said, “Jacob, you’re under arrest.”

As they put his hands behind his back, Bureros asked, “What am I being arrested for?” He asked it over and over again. Cops surrounded him as the small crowd echoed his question. “What is he being arrested for?!” It’s obvious even from the video that he was doing nothing before the arrest to instigate this escalation. Up until this moment, none of the organizers anticipated arrests or injuries. We didn’t even feel the need to have more than one street medic present from our local collective.

Once Bureros was in the car, the conflict continued. Cops shouted at protestors to get back from the street. A few people were just off the curb of the sidewalk. After several minutes of this back and forth. Niiya once again instigated a violent arrest out of nowhere. He grabbed one protester while a different cop grabbed another. In the video Niiya can be seen wrenching on one of the protester’s legs like a she’s a wishbone.

Then the cops pepper-sprayed the whole crowd. The arrestees, along with about 10 other individuals in the crowd, got a full face of pepper spray gel. Panicked chaos erupted. People were screaming, pleas of, “Medic!” could be heard in every direction. There was only one medic on hand ready with the mixed antacid and water in a bottle but several others stepped in and helped flush eyes using their own water bottles.

The arrestees were only given a little saline to flush their eyes and the skin covered in pepper spray wasn’t treated at all. The cops left pepper-spray to burn as they waited to be processed. After enduring this for seven hours, they were finally let out in the early hours of the morning. Later that day, when they arrived for court, they were given “no complaint,” on all charges. They were free to go. Bureros was charged with harassment for incidents that allegedly occurred on June 3rd. Prosecutors requested Bureros be barred from protesting — claiming the real issue isn’t harassment but that he’s stolen items at rallies — and asked that he be required to check in weekly. The judge threw out both.

https://twitter.com/KimberlyKimbley/status/1040657625187143680

This isn’t the first time the Portland Police Bureau has used this tactic to attempt to keep a well-respected activist from protests. In April of 2017, PPD charged another activist with second degree felony robbery and coercion with a $25,000 bail for removing a man’s glasses during a disagreement and immediately giving them to a nearby security guard. The charges were eventually dropped.