Police: $23 million lost due to ongoing Portland protests

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Downtown businesses in Portland, Oregon, have sustained about $23 million in damages and lost customers because of violent nightly protests that have brought the city to its knees, authorities said Wednesday.

At a police briefing, Deputy Chief Chris Davis said the intensity of the violence by an “agitator corps” and the length of the protests that are now in their sixth week are unprecedented in Oregon's largest city.

Davis made a sharp distinction between Black Lives Matter protesters, whom he said were not violent, and a smaller group of people he repeatedly called “agitators.”

“Quite frankly, this is not sustainable," he said. "There’s a very big difference between protests and the kind of mayhem that we’ve seen every night. ... The Black Lives Matter movement is not violent. The story that we're going to talk about today is about a small group of agitators that is attempting to hijack that message and use it as a cover for criminal activity.”

Protesters have demonstrated for 41 consecutive nights against racial injustice and police brutality following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and they are increasingly focusing their actions on federal properties, including Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse in the heart of the downtown business district.

Authorities have declared riots several times and used tear gas to disperse demonstrators. A recently issued federal court order bans the police from using the tear gas unless a riot is declared, but critics have challenged the police on what constitutes a riot and who makes the decision to designate a protest as an unlawful event.

The police unleashed tear gas last week the day after Gov. Kate Brown signed a bill into law that banned the use of it unless a riot was declared. That prompted Brown and Oregon House...