Bottom line:
The situation witnessed in Portland for the past eight weeks continues with violent anarchists rioting in the streets and assaulting federal law enforcement officers and federal property on a nightly basis.
In response to the rioters’ nightly attempts to raze and damage the Hatfield Federal Courthouse, DHS made the decision last week to put up a stronger fence around the building’s perimeter. Following the rioters’ repeated attempts to topple and breach the fence, DHS reinforced the metal fence with another layer of concrete barriers on the outside, which has prevented rioters from toppling it.
However, rioters continue to throw hard projectiles, commercial-grade, mortar-style fireworks, and Molotov cocktails over the fence in their unabated efforts to harm federal officers and destroy federal property.
The Past 24 Hours:
At 9:36 p.m. local time the first rioter jumped over the fence into the federal courthouse perimeter. Federal officers subsequently warned the crowd to stay off the fence.
At 10:50 p.m. local time rioters launched their first mortar firework assault of the evening against federal officers and property.
At 10:55 p.m. local time a fire was reported inside of the fence perimeter. Rioters continued to throw projectiles over the fence and launch fireworks at officers and the courthouse.
At 11:35 p.m. local time federal officers were forced to employ crowd control measures in response to the rioters’ violent behavior and warned that if the violent activity continued it would be declared an unlawful assembly. Rioters responded by assaulting officers with projectiles. At around 11:30 p.m. local time there was a large explosion caused by a flaming object that had been thrown over the fence, that resulted in a fire along the wall of the courthouse. Shortly thereafter, federal officers responded with a firehose in order to put out the blaze, protecting the officers and the building.
By around Midnight local time federal officers had given close to 20 warnings to the crowd.
At 12:01 a.m. local time rioters launched yet another mortar firework attack.
At 12:12 a.m. local time rioters threw another Molotov cocktail at the federal courthouse.
At 12:27 a.m. local time the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) reported possible looting in the downtown area near the rioting.
At 12:30 a.m. local time the crowd was reported to be at about 200-250 people; around this time, federal officers declared an unlawful assembly and left the fence perimeter to repel the crowd.
At 1:42 a.m. local time another Molotov cocktail was thrown into the fence perimeter at the courthouse, in which federal officers were situated at the time of the attack.
DHS officers conducted a total of 2 arrests – one for assault of a federal officer and one for failure to comply with a lawful order.
During the night’s violence, two officers were attacked with unknown liquids and were decontaminated as a precaution before returning to duty.