Man Shot During Anti-Trump Protest in Portland as Demonstrations Sweep Across US.
Portland police said the person who was shot was taken to a hospital for treatment of injuries that were not life-threatening. Police said they were looking for the shooter, who apparently fled in his vehicle after the attack early Saturday morning on a Willamette River bridge.
The shooting followed rowdy Friday night protests, when police used tear gas in response to “burning projectiles” thrown at officers, police said on Twitter. Hundreds of people marched through the city, disrupting traffic and spray-painting graffiti.
Authorities reported instances of vandalism and assault during a rally that organizers had billed as peaceful earlier in the day.
In other parts of the country, spirited demonstrations on college campuses and peaceful marches along downtown streets have taken place since Wednesday.
A mainly peaceful protest by about 3,000 people ended in Los Angeles early Saturday with about 200 arrests for failure to disperse after police broke up the lingering demonstration.
Hundreds joined a Friday afternoon “love rally” in Washington Square Park in Manhattan.
Leslie Holmes, 65, a website developer from Wilton, Connecticut, took an hour-long train ride to the demonstration — her first protest since the 1970s, when she hit the streets of San Francisco to oppose the Vietnam War.
She described herself as an armchair liberal but declared, “I’m not going to be armchair anymore.”
“I don’t want to live in a country where my friends aren’t included, and my friends are fearful, and my children are going to grow up in a world that’s frightening, and my granddaughters can look forward to being excluded from jobs and politics and fulfilling their potential, so I’m here for them,” she said.
Evening marches disrupted traffic in Miami and Atlanta.
Trump supporter Nicolas Quirico was traveling from South Beach to Miami. His car was among hundreds stopped when protesters blocked Interstate 395.
“Trump will be our president. There is no way around that, and the sooner people grasp that, the better off we will be,” he said. “There is a difference between a peaceful protest and standing in a major highway backing up traffic for 5 miles. This is wrong.”
More than a thousand protesters took to the streets across California after night fell including downtown Los Angeles, where over 200 were arrested a night earlier. In Bakersfield, where Trump is far more popular than in most of the state, some held signs reading “Anti-Trump, Pro-USA.”
Protests also were held in Detroit; Minneapolis; Kansas City, Missouri; Olympia, Washington and Iowa City.
More than 200 people, carrying signs gathered on the steps of the Washington state Capitol. The group chanted “not my president” and “no Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA.”
In Tennessee, Vanderbilt University students sang civil rights songs and marched through campus across a Nashville street, temporarily blocking traffic.
In Chicago, hundreds of people including families with small children chanted “No hate. No fear. Immigrants are welcome here” Saturday as they marched through Millennium Park, a popular downtown tourist attraction.
Sonja Spray, 29, who heard about the protest on Facebook, said she has signed an online petition urging the electoral college to honor the popular vote and elect Hillary Clinton.
“Women aren’t playthings. Journalists aren’t pawns. People of color are not commodities. Marriage equality is not up for debate,” Spray said.
Ashley Lynne Nagel, 27, said she joined a Thursday night demonstration in Denver.
“I have a leader I fear for the first time in my life,” said Nagel, a Bernie Sanders supporter who voted for Clinton.
“It’s not that we’re sore losers,” she said. “It’s that we are genuinely upset, angry, terrified that a platform based off of racism, xenophobia and homophobia has become so powerful and now has complete control of our representation.”
Demonstrations also took place internationally. About 300 people protested Trump’s election as the next American president outside the U.S. Embassy near the landmark Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
President Barack Obama meets in Berlin next week with Chancellor Angela Merkel and several other European leaders, and is expected to confront global concerns about Trump’s election.
Demonstrations also were planned Saturday in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and other areas.
Previous demonstrations drew thousands of people in New York and other large urban centers. The largely peaceful demonstrations were overshadowed by sporadic episodes of vandalism, violence and street-blocking.
