Sunday demonstrations in Portland described as peaceful

PORTLAND — Police reported another night of peaceful protests Sunday in downtown Portland, Oregon, with no interaction between officers and protesters.

The relative calm outside a federal courthouse that’s become ground zero in clashes between demonstrators and federal agents had come after the U.S. government began drawing down its forces under a deal between Democratic Gov. Kate Brown and the Trump administration.

Sunday’s demonstrations spilled out into the streets near Lownsdale Square park downtown causing traffic for several hours, but by midnight a majority of the crowd had left the area.

Thursday and Friday’s protests, which attracted more than 1,000 people, were also peaceful.

Saturday was slightly different. A group of about two hundred marched from Laurelhurst Park in the evening to the Penumbra Kelly Building, where Portland police were stationed. Police said that people shined bright lights, flashed lasers and threw a glass bottle at the officers. Soon after, police declared an unlawful assembly.

While dispersing and pushing the crowd west, objects were thrown at police, officers “deflated” the tires of a car that they said presented a hazard and at least two people were arrested and charged.

However, back downtown near the courthouse, hundreds of people gathered and peacefully marched through the streets downtown for two hours, into the early hours of Sunday.

Portland had seen more than two months of often violent demonstrations following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In early July, President Donald Trump sent more federal agents to the city to protect the federal courthouse, but local officials said their presence made things worse.