As Derek Chauvin’s trial draws to a close in Minneapolis, Philadelphia is among many cities girding itself for a repeat of last year’s rioting. It now seems likely that if Chauvin receives anything less than the maximum “life sentence without the possibility of parole,” Philadelphia will experience a replay of the looting and disorder that gripped the city last June after the death of George Floyd, and again in October after the shooting of Walter Wallace Jr.
In Philadelphia’s Port Richmond section near Aramingo Avenue, where the bulk of the looting occurred last June, some businesses are already boarding up in anticipation of violence. Many of these same business owners have met with the 24th Police District to make safety plans. At the city’s request, Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf signed a Proclamation of Disaster Emergency, activating the National Guard. “This declaration allows the commonwealth to take preemptive steps to ensure the safety of our fellow Pennsylvanians,” Wolf said.
In a city still recovering from the 2020 riots, the emphasis is now on prevention. But will it work?
In March 2021, the New York Times published a retrospective on how police mishandled Black Lives Matter protests in cities across the U.S. The opening paragraphs mention Philadelphia: “Police sprayed tear gas on a crowd of mainly peaceful protesters trapped on an interstate who had nowhere to go and no way to breathe.”
Anyone unfamiliar with the June and October riots in Philadelphia would have come away from the Times article thinking that the city was rife with police abuse. Yet on May 30, 2020, at the first George Floyd protest at the city’s Municipal Services Building, protesters hurled bottles at police (who were not wearing helmets or shields), set a squad car on fire, and broke windows in City Hall. For the next three or four nights, looters and rioters held sections of the city hostage, because police were unable to keep the peace.
The Times quotes independent investigators who claimed that “police did not understand how angry people were” and that “For decades, criminal justice experts have warned that warrior-like police tactics escalate conflict at protests instead of defusing it.” The investigators urged police departments to work with community organizers and enlist the expertise of activists in dealing with civil unrest.
As if heeding this advice, the Philadelphia Police Department Community Relations Unit recently instructed district captains to coordinate with community groups ahead of any possible lawlessness after the Chauvin verdict. Philadelphia chief inspector Altovise Love-Craighead even reached out to local community organizations willing to work with the police during “any civil unrest that might be planned for the foreseeable future.”
The chief inspector’s olive branch, however, was met with scorn from an activist at 5th Square, a city advocacy group, who said that the police outreach “could encourage the vigilantism also seen last year, in which armed groups of mostly white men patrolled for looters and, in some instances, assaulted innocent people.”
The so-called vigilantism of these “mostly white men” (a phrase meant to invoke “white supremacy”) came after days of police incompetence in handling the rioting and looting, which had extended from Center City into the Port Richmond neighborhood of upper Aramingo Avenue, where a large number of businesses and strip malls are located.
On multiple nights, neighborhood residents heard the sound of explosives, police sirens, and gunfire, despite the mayor’s week-long, citywide curfew. The ongoing rioting caused many to fear that the mob was about to infiltrate residential areas. With no police on hand, vigilante groups—made up of long-time residents with generational ties to the neighborhood—formed to protect the area.
Protesters accused these vigilantes of “assaulting innocent bystanders” or using “bad words” during the contentious exchanges between the two groups. Meantime, looters had already caused millions of dollars in property damage throughout the city.
Other attempts by the Philadelphia Police Department to reach out to registered community groups prior to the Chauvin verdict inspired one local activist to deride the whole thing as “a joke.” Local activist Devren Washington called the police outreach “disingenuous” and predicted that many would rebuff it, Plan Philly reported.
An independent report by City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart faulted the city for its handling of last year’s riots, blaming both Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw and Mayor Jim Kenney for the lack of preparedness. The report found that the police department “lacked the manpower and transportation to arrest looters, allowing the looting to continue without challenge for hours.”
Regarding the Chauvin verdict, Outlaw predicts that “emotions will run high regardless of the verdict” and that “The Philadelphia Police Department is committed to protecting the First Amendment rights of individuals to peacefully assemble and protest, but we also want to ensure that any demonstration activity that happens is done in a safe and lawful manner.”
Business owners in Port Richmond, Center City, and West Philadelphia are not so sure that protests will be conducted “in a safe and lawful manner.” Jabari Jones, head of the 2,000-member West Philadelphia Corridor Collaborative, told the African-American-owned Philadelphia Tribune that a number of West Philadelphia business owners have not been able to make repairs and reopen after last year’s riots, and that he doesn’t think the city will be “able to respond any better than the last go-around.”
“A large portion of our businesses would not be able to recover from another bout of civil unrest,” Jones said.
Thom Nickels is a Philadelphia-based author and journalist.
PORTLAND, Ore. — After the protests have concluded, sometimes in the early morning hours, Margaret Carter finds herself climbing into her gray Toyota Camry and cruising the streets of Portland so she can see the latest damage for herself.
Carter, 85, has been downtown to the Oregon Historical Society, where demonstrators have twice smashed out the windows, recently scrawling “No More History” on the side of the building. She has driven past the local headquarters of the Democratic Party, where windows have also been shattered. Last week, she found herself at the Boys & Girls Club in her own neighborhood, nearing tears at the scene of costly window destruction at a place she has worked so hard to support.
“Portland was a beautiful city,” said Carter, who was the first Black woman elected to the Oregon Legislative Assembly and is now retired. “Now you walk around and see all the graffiti, buildings being boarded up. I get sick to my stomach. And I get angry.”
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After almost a year of near-continuous protests since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Portland’s city leaders are signaling that it may be time for a more aggressive crackdown on the most strident street actions.
Mayor Ted Wheeler, himself a target of many of the protests as he oversaw a police department that has repeatedly turned to aggressive tactics, last week put into place a state of emergency that lasted six days and vowed to “unmask” those demonstrators who engaged in repeated acts of vandalism or arson, saying it was time to “hurt them a little bit.”
The demonstrations over racial justice and police violence have struck a chord with many Portland residents, and the mayor’s effort has infuriated some in the progressive city’s more liberal corners. Wheeler’s call for crowdsourced surveillance has alarmed civil rights advocates, and critics say the city has failed to bring an end to acts of violence by the Portland Police Bureau, a demand echoed by hundreds of demonstrators who have not destroyed property.
One of the latest flash points came this month, when a police officer fatally shot a man in a city park — a shooting that authorities have largely not explained.
Teressa Raiford, a community organizer who founded the nonprofit Don’t Shoot PDX, said activists were focused on saving lives while city leaders seemed to be focused on saving windows.
“There would not be protests if police didn’t continue to murder people,” Raiford said. “I wish we cared about life as much as we care about property.”
Protests erupted in thousands of communities around the country after Floyd’s death, but most gradually petered out. Portland, by contrast, had nightly protests for months, with a broad swath of the community demanding changes to confront racism and inequality in the criminal justice system. The Police Bureau exacerbated tensions, using force and tear gas in ways that have drawn the ire of judges and the Justice Department.
But the crowd sizes have waned, and figures such as Terry Porter, the former Portland Trail Blazers player, have called for an end to destructive demonstrations. Wheeler seemed to use last week’s conviction of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who murdered Floyd, as an opportunity to bring the most raucous of the protests to a close.
As people around the country went into the streets to cheer the conviction, some businesses in Portland boarded up their windows once again. That night, a small group of activists wearing black approached a group of journalists, threatening to smash the cameras of those who remained on scene. The group later shattered windows at two Starbucks stores. One man was arrested after throwing a punch at a police officer.
The crowds the city has seen are often made up of amorphous groups of people who come for different reasons. Chris Davis, the deputy police chief, estimated there were 150 to 200 people among the regular protesters who were prone to engage in property destruction, although the demonstrations often feature smaller numbers.
Those protesters often seen in identity-concealing black apparel and engaging in vandalism are a mix of anarchists and police abolitionists, said David Myers, an activist who has joined many of the city’s protests. He said that while he was OK with those who engaged in property damage to apply pressure on city officials unwilling to impose change, he bemoaned that some of those demonstrators seemed to be sidelining the original Black Lives Matter message and harming the cause. In some cases, he said, businesses owned by Black people or which support the Black community have been attacked.
“I think everybody in that mix wants to say they are BLM, but their actions show otherwise,” Myers said.
Myers was among a group of Black activists who posted a letter to the protest community last week, decrying “ongoing behavior seen as detrimental to Black Liberation.” Success, it said, requires “thoughtful action.”
The increasing consternation among protesters themselves provided an opening last week for Wheeler to announce a crackdown.
In his call for the public’s help, Wheeler urged people to report anything they might overhear about property destruction plans or boasts. He also called for residents to report protesters who appeared to be disguising their identity and to document their license plates for the police. He urged a local college to expel one student currently facing charges in connection with a demonstration if the student is convicted.
Police officers have been attempting to target and arrest demonstrators who engage in property destruction. Using a tactic known as “kettling” that has been used in policing protests around the country despite concerns from civil rights advocates, officers last month surrounded a crowd and began gathering information about each person caught inside the perimeter. The effort “yielded a lot of information,” Davis said.
In another recent case, after activists lit a fire at the police union headquarters, investigators reported working with an informant in the crowd to identify a suspect.
Mike Schmidt, the Multnomah County prosecutor, has taken a forgiving attitude toward protesters who remained peaceful. When he took office last summer, he effectively dismissed protest-related charges against hundreds of people.
Since then, he said, his office has been focused on protesters who have committed violent crimes or those involving property; for those who are arrested after such crimes, prosecutors will consider restoring lesser criminal charges that were previously dropped. He said his office was also asking judges to impose additional conditions for the pretrial release of some people charged with crimes, requiring them to leave any demonstration in which police officers declare an unlawful assembly or a riot.
Schmidt said he was frustrated that people were still engaging in property destruction, noting cases like the Boys & Girls Club.
“These are not just attacks on windows,” he said. “These are attacks on our community. These are attacks on the values of who we are.”
Myers, the activist, said he was worried about the mayor’s call for members of the public to alert the police when they see people wearing black protester-style clothing, saying it raises the prospect of vigilante actions. “It puts people at risk,” he said.
Myers said he expected the protests to continue despite the mayor’s efforts to quash them.
Eric Murfitt, who manages Mercantile Portland, a high-end women’s clothing store, said he had heard leaders such as Wheeler expressing the right determination to end the unrest. But he said he still had not seen a lot of follow-through or results.
“Do we want to live in chaos where there are no laws, no police, no accountability?” Murfitt said. “Or do we want to live in a civil society?”
Murfitt said a night of looting in May resulted in $1 million in damage at his store, only days after it had reopened after the coronavirus lockdowns. Later in the year, Murfitt said, the store’s insurer declined to renew the policy.
The store eventually found another insurer but must pay four times more than the previous policy — tens of thousands of additional dollars per year — for a new policy that does not cover losses from civil unrest, Murfitt said. He said he was also spending tens of thousands of dollars to put bars over the windows and film on the window glass.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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