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Portland: George Washington Statue Torn Down, Draped in Burning U.S. Flag

brx0/Flickr, @KGWphotog, @hungrybowtie/Twitter

JOSHUA CAPLAN

19 Jun 20201,838

2:30

A statue of George Washington, the first president of the United States, was toppled and draped in a burning American flag by protesters in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday evening.

KOIN 6 reports:

Thursday marked the 21st day of protests in Portland sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Two groups — Rose City Justice and Lavender Caucus — hosted a sit-in rally at Jefferson High School in the evening where community members shared their experiences with racism to a crowd of a few hundred. The group did not hold a march.

A separate group of about 20 people met at NE Sandy Boulevard and NE 57th Avenue around 10 p.m. at the site of a large bronze statue of George Washington. Some wrapped the statue’s head in an American flag and lit the flag on fire. Their numbers grew over the next hour until there were enough people to pull the statue to the ground. They quickly scattered. A KOIN 6 News crew found the statue face down and covered in graffiti. Portland police arrived a short time later.

Photos and video of the teardown were shared to Twitter by local reporters and citizen journalist Garrison Davis:

Garrison Davis (Teargas Glutton)@hungrybowtie

 · 8h

Replying to @hungrybowtie

George Washington is down. #Portlandprotest #statue #blacklivesmatter   #PDXprotests #pdx #oregon #blm #acab #pdx #georgewashington #flagburning#StatuesMustFall

Garrison Davis (Teargas Glutton)@hungrybowtie

Another flag burning, this time on George Washington’s back. #Portlandprotest #statue #blacklivesmatter   #PDXprotests #pdx #oregon #blm #acab #pdx #georgewashington #flagburning#StatuesMustFall

247

11:19 PM - Jun 18, 2020

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Tim Dickinson

✔@7im

Statue of George Washington felled in Portland.

426

12:16 AM - Jun 19, 2020

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Eric Patterson

✔@KGWphotog

The George Washington statue in the Hollywood District of NE Portland is the latest one to be vandalized. The statue and sidewalk have been graffitied. @KGWNews #GeorgeWashington #vandalism

7

5:20 AM - Jun 19, 2020

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Debra Gil

✔@DebraGil

Protesters in Portland are taking racial inequality frustrations out on statues of historical figures who were also slave owners. This George Washington statue was toppled last night. #Fox12Oregon

8

6:28 AM - Jun 19, 2020 · George Washington Statue

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The monument and its base were covered in vandalism, including the phrases: “Murder,” “Big Floyd,” “1619,” “Fuck Cops,” “BLM,” “Land Back,” “White Fragility,” and “You’re on Native Land.”

On Sunday, a statue of Thomas Jefferson, the United States’ third president and author of the Declaration of Independence, was defaced and torn down outside a Portland high school.
Photos obtained by Oregon Live show the base of the monument was spray-painted in black with “slave owner” and “George Floyd.”

The Oregonian

✔@Oregonian

Protesters take down Thomas Jefferson statue in front of Portland’s Jefferson High School https://trib.al/slmPPJK 

625

10:37 PM - Jun 14, 2020

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The statue, which was situated in front of Jefferson High School, was yanked down following a protest against police brutality organized by Rose City Justice.

“There’s an interesting piece of history up here… Mr. Thomas is all beside himself,” one protester said of the statue being toppled.

“We’re taking this city back,” the organizer added. “One school at a time. One racist statue at a time.”

The toppling of the Washington statue comes as historical monuments across the country have been targeted in the wake of protests and violent unrest sparked by the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis on Memorial Day.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan speaks at a press conference in Seattle, Wash., on March 28, 2020. (Karen Ducey/Getty Images)

US NEWS

Police Officers Will Only Enter Seattle’s Autonomous Zone for ‘Significant Life-Safety’ Calls: Mayor

BY ZACHARY STIEBER

June 17, 2020 Updated: June 17, 2020

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Seattle police officers will only enter the so-called autonomous zone if they receive calls concerning “significant life-safety issues,” Mayor Jenny Durkan said.

Those issues “may include an active shooter incident, an assault, a structure fire, significant medical emergency (i.e. heart attack, stroke, trauma) and other incidents that threaten a person’s life safety,” according to a statement from the office of Durkan, a Democrat.

A group of activists took over an area comprising multiple blocks in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington state’s largest city earlier this month.

Video footage showing fights, people being mobbed, and robberies of businesses in and near the area has circulated widely online as city officials resist calls to use force to deal with the situation. When one shop, Car Tender, was stolen from Sunday night, police officers never responded in person despite being called repeatedly.

An internal message circulated to police officers last week displayed a map showing the autonomous zone in red.

Officers shouldn’t respond to calls within the red zone “unless the response is to a mass casualty event,” such as an active shooter incident or a structural fire that’s likely to endanger lives, the message stated.

An entrance to the so-called Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle, Wash., on June 10, 2020. (Ernie Li/NTD Television)

If responding to a mass casualty event, officers “should muster with a supervisor outside that zone” to evaluate whether it’s feasible to respond and develop a plan.

Police Chief Carmen Best said Monday that officers are responding when they get a call “that’s an important emergency 911 call.”

Officers did respond to the phone calls from Car Tender, which experienced a break-in, but refrained from approaching the area, Best told reporters at a press conference.

“The officers responded to the call and they observed the location from a distance. They did not see any signs of smoke or fire or anything else and they did not see a disturbance,” Best said. “The officers did not observe, based on the report that I read, anything that they perceived as a threat to life safety, and they didn’t go in.”

“We do not want to escalate under the current situation any potential danger to the community and put them unnecessarily in harm’s way,” she added.

A ‘Black Lives Matter’ mural is painted on the street in an area in the so-called ‘autonomous zone, in Seattle, Wash., June 11, 2020. (Jasmyne Keimig – The Stranger via Reuters)

Durkan and other city officials reached an agreement with occupiers that included major concessions, including replacing temporary barriers with concrete ones that shut off some streets to traffic.

A street next to Cal Anderson park will remain closed, Durkan’s office said. “This street is now home to the Black Lives Matter street art,” the statement said.

Occupiers in return agreed to allow the re-opening of 12th Avenue to vehicles in a shift that reduces the size of the zone from six city blocks to three.

The area taken over by activists was initially known as the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” but was recently changed to the Capitol Hill Organized Protest, or CHOP.

“Minor changes to the protest zone will implement safer and sturdier barriers to protect individuals in this area, allow traffic to move throughout the Capitol Hill neighborhood, ease access for residents of apartment building in the surrounding areas, and help local businesses manage deliveries and logistics,” the mayor’s office said. “Additionally all plans have been crafted with the goal of allowing access for emergency personnel including fire trucks.”

Follow Zachary on Twitter: @zackstieber

Nancy Pelosi Orders Confederate Portraits – All Democrats – Removed from U.S. Capitol

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi / Facebook

Volume 90%

HANNAH BLEAU

18 Jun 2020683

4:30

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced on Thursday that four portraits of former speakers who served in the Confederacy — all Democrats — will be removed on Juneteenth, telling reporters that there is “no room” to “memorialize people who embody violent bigotry and grotesque racism of the Confederacy” in the U.S. Capitol.

“Tomorrow is Juneteenth, a day that we observe as a day of freedom in our country. It was a day that people in the West found out about the Emancipation Proclamation,” Pelosi said during a Thursday press conference.

“In observance of that, I’ve sent a letter … to the clerk of the House directing the clerk to remove portraits of four previous speakers of the house who served in the Confederacy,” she continued:

We didn’t know about this until we were taking inventory of the statues and the curator told us that there were four paintings of speakers in the Capitol of the United States, four speakers who served in the Confederacy. So tomorrow, Juneteenth, the clerk will oversee removal of those Confederate speakers.

Pelosi added that there is “no room in hallowed halls of democracy, this temple of democracy, to memorialize people who embody violent bigotry and grotesque racism of the Confederacy.”

The speaker formally made the request in a letter to House Clerk Cheryl Johnson, requesting the “immediate removal of the portraits in the U.S. Capitol of four previous Speakers who served in the Confederacy: Robert Hunter of Virginia (1839-1841), Howell Cobb of Georgia (1849-1851), James Orr of South Carolina (1857-1859), and Charles Crisp of Georgia (1891-1895)” — all of whom were once members of Pelosi’s very own party.

“The portraits of these men are symbols that set back our nation’s work to confront and combat bigotry,” Pelosi added.

“You have to see the remarks that they had made and how oblivious they were to what our founders had in mind in our country. We must lead by example, so we’re glad that that is gone,” she added:

Pelosi has, however, largely failed to lead by example in condemning the actions of her late father, who oversaw the dedication of a Confederate statue — the Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee Monument — in Baltimore’s Wyman Park while serving as the city’s mayor in 1948.

As Breitbart News detailed:

At the time, the speaker’s father said people could look to Jackson’s and Lee’s lives as inspiration and urged Americans to “emulate Jackson’s example and stand like a stone wall against aggression in any form that would seek to destroy the liberty of the world.”

“World Wars I and II found the North and South fighting for a common cause, and the generalship and military science displayed by these two great men in the War between the States lived on and were applied in the military plans of our nation in Europe and the Pacific areas,” D’Alesandro said at the dedication ceremony, as detailed by the Baltimore Sun. He continued:

“Today with our nation beset by subversive groups and propaganda which seeks to destroy our national unity, we can look for inspiration to the lives of Lee and Jackson to remind us to be resolute and determined in preserving our sacred institutions … remain steadfast in our determination to preserve freedom, not only for ourselves, but for other liberty-loving nations who are striving to preserve their national unity as free nations.”

The Baltimore city council opted to remove the statue in 2017. Pelosi’s office did not respond to Breitbart News’s request for comments on the her father’s remarks on the Confederate monument.

The speaker has also requested the removal of Confederate statues at the Capitol, describing them as “monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end.”

“While I believe it is imperative that we never forget our history lest we repeat it, I also believe that there is no room for celebrating the violent bigotry of the men of the Confederacy in the hallowed halls of the United States Capitol or places of honor across the country,” the speaker said in a letter to the Joint Committee on the Library.

“The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation,” Pelosi added. “Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end are a grotesque affront to these ideals.”