PORTLAND — Protesters in Portland smashed windows at City Hall in a demonstration that started Tuesday night and stretched into Wednesday morning and police made 23 arrests as they dispersed the crowd in Oregon’s largest city, officials said.
Demonstrators in the crowd of about 150 also threw bottles and eggs at police, put metal bars in the street to try to damage police vehicles and smashed a security camera on the City Hall building, police said in a statement. The statement said officers used “crowd control munitions” in response but did not say what kind.
The violence came a day after protesters Monday night repeatedly set fire to a police union headquarters building and were repelled by officers spraying tear gas, officials said. Twenty-five people were arrested amid clashes that stretched into Tuesday morning.
Portland has been gripped by nightly protests for nearly three months since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Demonstrations, often violent, have targeted police buildings and federal buildings. Some protesters have called for reductions in police budgets while the city’s mayor and some in the Black community have decried the violence, saying it is counterproductive.
