Violence

Comment from a resident of Portland in the New York Times.

I live in Portland and I want outsiders to have some context. 1) The nightly protests here mostly stick to one half of one city block downtown, and occasionally pop up at law enforcement facilities elsewhere. Our city is definitely NOT under seige. 2) The vast majority of protesters are peaceful although more aggressive tacticians do come out late at night. 3) It appears that our police force is not meeting violent right-wing protesters with nearly the same force as violent left-wing protesters. 4) It sounds like general calls to the police are going unanswered city-wide. The impression is that they are spread too thin. However, police cruisers can be seen driving around during the day, all over the city, seeming to do nothing but kill time. (Makes me suspicious.) 5) I don't know anyone in the suburbs who can legitimately claim to feel threatened by the protests because they don't see or feel any of it. They live too far away. 6) The Trump supporting truck caravan met at a suburban mall just south of the city center. It's likely that many of those people came from rural areas further South and East. These folks have expressed frustration in the past - before Trump - feeling that politics and culture are being shaped by urban centers without their input. They feel like hostages to "liberals" in their state. 7) Most Oregonians don't want federal intervention, regardless of their political bent. I hear that even Ammon Bundy and Joey Gibson wanted the feds out of Portland.