PORTLAND, Ore. — Police in Portland declared the city’s protests a “riot” Thursday night as throngs shut down streets, smashed windows, vandalized cars and set small fires into the early morning hours as part of a wave of protests in cities across the country against the election of Donald Trump.
Around 4,000 people took to Portland’s streets at the peak of the demonstration, confronting drivers, spray-painting buildings and smashing electrical boxes with baseball bats, said Pete Simpson, public information officer for the Portland Police department. By early Friday morning, at least 29 people had been arrested.
Elsewhere, thousands of protesters surrounded Trump’s buildings in New York and Chicago, clashing with supporters of the president-elect in some areas.
Condemning Trump’s litany of crude comments about women and his attacks on immigrants, demonstrators across the country marched along city streets, blocked intersections, burned effigies and, in some places, gathered outside buildings bearing Trump’s name.
“Not my president,” chanted some of the protesters, while others waved signs with the same message.
The protests earned recriminations from Trump, who had met with President Barack Obama at the White House Thursday morning: “Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!,” Trump said on Twitter.
It was his first comment about the protests and one of few statements he has made since claiming victory over Hillary Clinton early Wednesday morning. In 2012, after Obama was elected to a second term, Trump tweeted: “We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!”
Trump softened his comments Friday morning by tweeting: “Love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country. We will all come together and be proud!”
What began as a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in Portland at about 6 p.m. Thursday escalated as the night wore on due to demonstrators not affiliated with the group, said Teressa Raiford, a community organizer.
“They’re not coming to show solidarity, they’re coming because they know there’s going to be a big crowd,” Raiford said. “They don’t respect our movement.”
Simpson said anarchists “aligned with the Black Bloc groups” infiltrated the peaceful demonstration “covered head-to-toe and carrying weapons.”
“Their tactic is go out and destroy property,” Simpson said. Peaceful protesters tried to stop the more violent individuals, but “they’re not having any luck,” Simpson said.
After protesters began throwing objects at police, and refusing orders to disperse, authorities used nonlethal flash grenades to move the crowd. “It’s definitely fair to say we are significantly outnumbered,” Simpson said. Thursday’s protest was “one of the larger marches we’ve seen in the last few years,” he said.
Anger at the outcome of the election and a professed unwillingness to accept it are widespread on the Internet, despite conciliatory words from Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, with thousands of people declaring on social media that the president-elect is “never my president” or “not my president,” phrases that showed up on placards at protests.
Those sentiments were echoed in Vancouver, which was the site of a peaceful protest Thursday. Hundreds of protesters snaked their way through the downtown to the Trump Tower, pumping their fists and chanting “Love trumps hate.”
The oversized letters spelling out the Trump name immediately above the building’s front doors had been covered in blue sheets and a fence surrounded the entrance.
Dozens of placards bobbed above the crowd with various slogans disparaging the president-elect, ranging from “Build kindness, not walls” and “Proud supporter of love,” to “Make America safe again,” and “Prejudice kills.”
Steve Cucuzza, a New Yorker who opted to visit Canada to escape the election-night chaos, attended the Vancouver rally. He said he wasn’t expecting an anti-Trumpgathering so far from home but added that he wasn’t surprised.
Source: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/anti-trump-protest-turns-to-riot-as-thousands-across-united-states-vent-anger-over-election-results