Belated dispatch from the 3 pm press conference at the Portland Police Association HQ.

PPA prez Daryl Turner called the recent protest “chaos, anarchy,” echoed Dept Homeland Security sect. Chad Wolf in saying “our city is under siege.”

“If you care about Black lives, the only thing you need to do is make this stop,” said Turner.

He was joined by pastor Mike Hennessee, who asked for a “moratorium” on demonstrations—asked protesters to pick a time/place to meet and “have a conversation.”

He and other advocates for Portland police plan on joining officers on the front lines during protests to show their support.

Antoinette Edwards, the forward director of Portland’s office of youth violence intervention said that the city is not “being courageous in leadeship.” Whats happening in Portland would “grieve” the soul of the late John Lewis, she said.

The press conference was interrupted by a Demesha Smith, a 27 yo woman who lives in an apt across the street, who explained how tear gas has seeped into her home and given her 8 yo son PTSD.

She said she was also beaten with a PPB cop’s baton & arrested while trying to get her her home during a demonstration a few weeks ago.

She added that white protesters weren’t being arrested at the time. “Minorities keep getting the short end of the stick,” said Smith, who is Black.

During this, officers tried to get her to quiet down — offering her their cards to talk more later. “No, what go is that going to do? I’m talking about this right now.” Here she is (in abvpub shirt) addressing Turner:

The press conference was also attended by Jeff Paul, a protester who was beaten by a federal officer’s baton last night, when he was trying to help a woman grab her purse that she dropped while being tear gassed.

The general theme of this press conference was: What the federal police are doing is bad, what the local police are doing is good. And what the public is doing is anarchy.

Story to come.

Okay I said story to come, but it turns out I haven’t had time to write this today and... I’m exhausted. Story, eventually.