Bottom line:
The violence Portland has witnessed over the past eight weeks continues as violent anarchists keep attacking federal law enforcement officers and federal property on a nightly basis.
Last week, DHS put up a metal fence around the building’s perimeter. Following 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 pulling or pushing it over. While the fence remained standing through the night, rioters at one point were able to use bolt cutters to create a hole large enough for a person to crawl through.
In their unabated, nightly efforts to harm federal officers and destroy federal property, rioters attacked with hard projectiles, commercial-grade, mortar-style fireworks, flaming projectiles such as Molotov cocktails and lasers – which can cause, and has caused in our officers, permanent blindness.
The Past 24 Hours:
At approximately 9:30 p.m. local time, rioters pelted officers with garbage in response to Officers using hoses to clear out trash and built up debris inside the perimeter, previously thrown over the fence by rioters.
At 10:45 p.m. local time, rioters set a fire inside of the fence. Rioters reportedly were setting fires within the perimeter throughout the course of the night.
At 11:04 p.m. local time, rioters launched their first mortar firework attacks of the night against the courthouse.
At around 11:14 p.m. local time, with most officers inside the courthouse, rioters in the crowd pointed lasers at federal officers on the roof of the building, which can disorient and blind them.
By 11:30 p.m. local time, the crowd size was estimated to be around 500 individuals.
11:55 p.m. local time, another fire was set inside the fence perimeter. Media footage also captured a rioter starting a fire within the perimeter around this time.
At around 12:34 a.m. local time, a rioter was taken into custody after entering the fence perimeter.
At 12:42 a.m. local time, rioters brought out a flaming object from the nearby park and threw it over the fence onto federal property.
At 12:45 a.m. local time, a rioter wearing an orange jumpsuit jumped over the fence and then threw a Molotov cocktail at the federal courthouse. Shortly thereafter rioters launched a firework attack on the front door of the courthouse.
1:32 a.m. local time, law enforcement officers announced an unlawful assembly after issuing several warnings to not tamper with the fence or vandalize federal property. Shortly thereafter, federal officers left the courthouse in order to repel the rioters outside.
At 1:40 a.m. local time, officers used a hose to put out a fire that had started inside the fence and to dampen the trash thrown over the fence as a precautionary measure to prevent another fire later.
1:44 a.m. local time, federal officers moved back inside the Hatfield Courthouse, while rioters threw hard projectiles and commercial-grade fireworks at them.
DHS Officers conducted three (3) arrests, one (1) for failure to comply with a lawful order and two (2) for destruction of federal property.