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How Portland Protesters Keep Each Other Safe
Why you can trust us
Portlanders have been leading protests against racism and police brutality for more than five months after the death of George Floyd. Organizing months of ongoing direct action聽is one challenge, but keeping each other safe鈥攑hysically and mentally鈥攊s another.
This article is the second in a three-part series exploring the anatomy of Portland’s ongoing protest movement. Read part 1 here, and part 3 here.
Staying Safe in the Streets
Assembled outside of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland鈥檚 South Waterfront, the Aug. 20 demonstration organized by Safe PDX Protest was met by federal and local law enforcement, which at the protesters. While many people on the front of the 鈥斺�攁nd were able to avoid serious injury that night, the show of force from the police often causes injuries. It’s difficult to determine an accurate scope of the injuries sustained over five months of protests, but there are documented instances of , , temporary , and an extreme case of with a munition by a U.S. Marshall.
When a protester is injured, resting on the sidewalk or taking a breather against a building isn鈥檛 an option while police are actively trying to clear the area, often with munitions, gas, and physical force. In those moments, street medics are needed.
The street medic community in Portland is a sprawling network, but the Portland Action Medics is a long-standing street medic group, providing emergency medical care at protests since 2017. PAM is a loose network of street medics who have received at least 20 hours of training on protest-specific street medicine.
According to PAM organizer Jesse Sparkles, the group has 160 active street medics, about 50 of whom serve the protests weekly. Sparkles estimates that 25% of PAM medics are front-line health care workers.
The Portland Action Medics started gearing up this year in mid-March when COVID-19 hit. The group is always prepared to restock medic kits or assist with a pop-up event, so they had large storage tubs full of gloves and first aid supplies.
鈥淲ell, shit, it鈥檚 not doing any good in my attic,鈥� Sparkles recalls thinking when the pandemic began, so he distributed the supplies to medics who started serving homeless encampments, passing out masks and gloves. Then, PAM organizers made bulk orders for isopropyl alcohol and started making homemade hand sanitizer. Sparkles estimates that PAM made more than 500 gallons of sanitizer. The medics also collaborated with mutual aid groups, harm reduction groups, and nonprofits to distribute supplies into broader networks.
When the protests started, the group just shifted into a new gear, asking themselves what protesters needed to protest safely during a pandemic.
鈥淧rotesting ultimately isn鈥檛 safe, and we鈥檙e not trying to say that it is,鈥� Sparkles says. 鈥淏ut that doesn鈥檛 mean we can鈥檛 take care of each other.鈥�
Street medics started taking out rolling carts full of first aid, hand sanitizer, and masks to the protests. When the demonstrators started being tear gassed in the early morning hours, PAM added respirators, tear gas wipes, eye flush solution, and energy drinks to their carts. All of the supplies are distributed out of the PAM 鈥渓ab.鈥�
The lab looks like an ad hoc warehouse, with a dozen or so tables covered with medical supplies. Against a wall are buckets of supplies where street medics reload their portable wagons before heading out a protest: masks, hand sanitizer, first aid basics, energy drinks, and tear gas wipes. A whiteboard catalogues the group鈥檚 inventory鈥攁s of mid-August, they had made 8,959 tear gas wipes since the start of the protests.
After the first month of protests, nightly actions moved away from the Multnomah County Justice Center鈥攈ome to the Portland Police Bureau鈥檚 central precinct and a county jail鈥攁nd the federal courthouse in downtown Portland to various police precincts in residential areas. PAM has started posting flyers in . The flyers list the potential impacts of tear gas, how to seal doors and windows to limit your exposure, and how to remove tear gas from your hair, skin, and clothes if you are exposed. Volunteers staple the flyers onto telephone poles and go door-to-door, providing small bags with medical masks, earplugs, and tear gas wipes.
鈥淚f you鈥檙e going to show up in someone鈥檚 life, give something,鈥� Sparkles advises, noting that now is a powerful time to build community connections because of the amount of need.
Being nimble and ready to change is what makes PAM effective, Sparkles explains. That flexibility means acknowledging changing conditions, quickly asking what the group has the ability to provide, and scaling that up as fast as possible.
鈥淚t鈥檚 been an evolving thing鈥攏ext week we might be doing something completely different, honestly,鈥� Sparkles says.
Beyond the Basics
Beyond the street medics, several mutual aid groups supply protesters with gear and fuel each night.
The Witches are a local coven of people from different faiths, including Wicca, Santeria, Native beliefs, and Neo-Paganism, who provide mutual aid during the protests, among other things. The coven was moved to action after watching the viral video of George Floyd鈥檚 death and attended the first protests as a group. From there, the coven started recognizing needs and doing their best to fill them.
According to coven member R, The Witches started bringing snacks and basic supplies like masks and water to the protests. As the demonstrations lasted later into the night, they started bringing full meals like pizzas and burritos, as well as energy drinks and portable food for protesters to take for later. Once the tear gas started, The Witches 鈥渂asically bought out Oregon鈥� of respirators, R says, in addition to providing knee pads and umbrellas, which protesters use to deflect munitions like a shield.
When Oregon experienced historic wildfires in September, The Witches mobilized their mutual aid to counties that were most impacted by the flames, for evacuees and .
As protests have continued for more than five months, The Witches are trying to address the trauma and mental health impacts protesters are experiencing by providing self-care bags for protesters who are being released from jail, usually after being arrested for interfering with a peace officer. Each care bag from The Witches has a candle, lotion, bath salts, and a piece of chocolate.
鈥淧retty soon, I looked around, and it鈥檚 a much larger operation and coven than I thought possible,鈥� R says. 鈥淲e were working with another mutual aid group, and another one and another one, and now I would say we鈥檙e basically part of this mutual aid never-ending game of phone tag, where we are all talking to each other and communicating the needs of the community and trying to be there for each other.鈥�
Another member of that mutual aid phone tag is Team Raccoon, a group of volunteers who bring 鈥渢rash grabbers鈥� to protests to clean up cigarette butts and spent munitions. Morgan Mckniff, the organizer and public face of Team Raccoon, started the group by leading Saturday morning cleanups in Lownsdale Square, the center of the initial two-block protest zone in downtown Portland. The first cleanup was on July 5, and aimed to give people who didn鈥檛 want to, or couldn鈥檛, participate in nighttime protests a way to support the movement鈥攖here were about 20 regular volunteers.
鈥淎 lot of people would show up because they want to help and they can鈥檛 participate in direct action,鈥� they explain. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really sad because these last two weeks we鈥檝e experienced so much alt-right violence [at the park-clean location] that I don鈥檛 think we can in good conscience hold a park-clean anymore, so I鈥檓 trying to figure out a way to have those people participate as well.鈥�
Mckniff now focuses on cleaning during nightly actions with three to five other volunteers, and running a respirator filter exchange program. The respirator exchange is funded by a , before dissolving and redistributing the community donations they received after internal conflict. Mckniff collects spent filters鈥攆ilters that have accumulated too many particles from CS gas to continue filtering air effectively鈥攆rom protesters who provide the dates the filters were used and any symptoms they have experienced, and gives them to a team of researchers who catalog the chemicals and the chemical degradation over time.
Little is known about the impact of inhaling CS gas over an extended period of time, but there has been a .
鈥淭he danger of the chemical munitions being used once is real, but the impact of long-term [exposure] is completely unknown,鈥� Mckniff says. 鈥淣obody was intended to be using these things for 90 days every day.鈥�
On Sept. 10, after 105 days of tear gas being used semi-regularly to disperse crowds of protesters, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler鈥攚ho also acts as the city鈥檚 police commissioner鈥�. The Portland Police have abided by the ban, but the federal officers who often work in tandem with local police to disperse protesters are not affected by the ban and continue to use CS gas.
There are also groups like PDX Disabled Comrade Collective that work to make nightly actions more accessible for disabled protesters by promoting education materials and connecting disabled protesters with protest buddies.
鈥淭here is a space for protesting for any body,鈥� Sylvan, one of the group organizers, says. 鈥淚t might look different sometimes and we might need accessibility and inclusion to help us make it happen, but so many disabled activists are passionate about all of this and they want to be a part of it too.鈥�
One of the group鈥檚 major successes was connecting a visually impaired journalist with a sighted guide so she could record audio of the protests. Shark, another group organizer, said that so many protesters were offering to be sighted guides that the journalist was able to extend the opportunity to the larger visually impaired community in Portland.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 see how you can claim the First Amendment right is a right if it鈥檚 not fairly applied throughout an entire population; then it鈥檚 a privilege to be able to protest, which is the opposite of a right,鈥� Shark argues.
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Isabella Garcia
is a former solutions reporter and former editorial intern for 精东影业 Media. Her work has appeared in The Malheur Enterprise and 精东影业 Magazine. Isabella is based in Portland. She can be reached at isabellagarcia.website.
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