Portland leaders called for calm on Sunday following a deadly shooting Saturday night during a downtown Trump rally, but provided no further plans on how to ease increasing tensions.
Late Saturday night, an unidentified man reportedly wearing a Patriot Prayer hat was shot to death in downtown Portland where a caravan supporting President Donald Trump and law enforcement were holding a rally.
Many drivers appeared to be armed, both at Clackamas Town Center where the caravan first began to downtown, according to videos posted to social media by journalists and bystanders. Oregon is an open-carry state.
Members of the caravan were seen shooting paintballs and using pepper spray on bystanders and counter protesters, according to reports from journalists Mike Baker of the New York Times and Sergio Olmos of Oregon Public Broadcasting, as well as videos posted to social media.
Portland police said over the weekend the suspect is still at large.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler was accompanied by Portland Police Bureau Chief Chuck Lovell and Multnomah County Attorney Mike Schmidt during a Sunday afternoon press conference and took questions from the press.
“Portland desperately needs calm,” said Portland Police Bureau Chuck Lovell. “We’re living in extremely divided era, and it’s time if for us to focus on what we have in common, and not what divides us. Lives are at stake.”
Lovell and Wheeler have received local and national criticism over Portland law enforcement’s inaction just a week before as members of anti-fascist groups and the Proud Boys fought near the downtown Multnomah County Justice Center.
When asked about the lack of police presence where the shooting occurred, Lovell said the bureau had attempted to initiate “precautionary measures” to keep the caravan on the freeway and out of downtown.
Lovell further repeated past arguments that the bureau is limited to “finite resources” and “can’t be everywhere at once.”
Lovell also said he would ask that people not bring firearms to future rallies.
Wheeler expressed his condolences to the victim’s family and said the city is investigating.
“I’ve stood at this podium many times and expressed what my greatest fear would be and that is that someone would die and now someone has,” Wheeler said.
The mayor mostly used the press conference to directly accuse President Donald Trump of escalating violence in the city by characterizing protesters against police brutality as “violent anarchists.”
“You’ve tried to divide us more than any other figure in modern history and now, you want me to stop the violence that you helped create,” Wheeler said. What America needs is for you to be stopped so that we can come back together as one America.”
Wheeler nonetheless asked President Trump to help him create a plan for moving the city forward.
“That would be a message, ‘Donald Trump and Ted Wheeler working together to move this country forward,'” Wheeler said. “Why don’t we change that for a change?”
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Sunday joined Wheeler in condemning the president, claiming his rhetoric has lead to years of violent events across the country.
“President Trump has encouraged division and stoked violence,” Brown said. “It happened in Charlottesville. It happened in Kenosha. And now, unfortunately, it is happening in Portland, Oregon.”
During the conference, Wheeler said that Brown twice declined to deploy Oregon’s National Guard amid Portland protests.
Wheeler said he would be meeting with local, state, and regional law enforcement agencies later on Sunday to discuss policing strategies.
Local and state officials, meanwhile, have condemned Wheeler’s leadership.
“The response from Governor Kate Brown and Mayor Ted Wheeler has been disastrous and has made Portland fodder for national embarrassment,” said Senate Minority Leader Fred Girod, R-Stayton. “Until the governor’s and mayor’s words are followed with action, they are just words, and innocent Oregonians will continue to be collateral damage.”
Wheeler’s reelection opponent, Sarah Iannarone, has called on Wheeler to give up his powers as police commissioner.
Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty previously called on Wheeler to grant control of the bureau to her earlier this summer.
“We need clear and unambiguous leadership to drive us to a more just future, with lived experience to direct needed urgent changes,” Hardesty tweeted on Sunday. “I am ready to be that leader. We cannot continue to have a police force that shows up a minute late because their leadership is not showing up at all.”
While Wheeler said he had “no plans to transfer control of the bureau” at this time, adding that “everything is on the table” after the fall general election.
During the conference, Wheeler repeated his support for protesters’ right to demonstrate and exercise their constitutional right to free speech.
“I am not personally a Trump supporter, but I will defend to the death the right of a Trump supporter to protest non-violently outside my apartment,” Wheeler said. “That’s the core of our democracy. But the the violence is the problem.”
In a letter to President Trump earlier in the week, Wheeler said he would not accept any support from federal law enforcement to police demonstrations. The Portland City Council has banned local police from coordinating with federal agents deployed by the Trump administration.
Agents with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies face a variety of lawsuits for allegedly using excessive force, injuring protesters, and violating free speech rights of demonstrators.
Protests against police brutality in Portland, which began in late May following the killing of George Floyd by Minnesota police on May 25, are nearing 100 consecutive days of demonstrations.
