What’s up with the tear gas, Feds?

ETA: Read the comments below. Although no one has questioned that I and other protestors are correct that we’re getting low doses of tear gas throughout the evening, commenters much more knowledgeable than I am about this stuff have a much better hypothesis for how this is happening: without rain in Portland, the toxic powder that is called tear gas settles on surfaces, but remains potentially active. When kicked up by activity, it can be breathed in with no more difficulty than it is during initial pyrotechnic dispersal. Because so much tear gas powder has been released into the environment and because summer is a very dry season in Portland, the normal human activities associated with walking around the area, sitting on benches, etc., are kicking up a lot of still active tear gas. This makes the ongoing, low-dose toxicity and associated persistent hellishness almost certainly unintended by the Feds. Of course, I don’t think they regret it at all either. In any case, don’t skip the comments. I am lucky enough to have better quality commenters than most.

Okay, what’s up with the tear gas, Feds?

We know you release whole canisters of the stuff, and sometimes drop 20 canisters at a time (yes, I know it’s hard to tell exactly how many, but 20 seems roughly accurate during larger offensives). We know you do it to punish people rather than to aid in crowd dispersal because, look! You drive people away for less than 5 minutes before they’re back at the fence!

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Listen to the Flower People

Did I mention that on Saturday people brought flowers to decorate on the Courthouse fencing? When we arrived that night we were treated to a beautiful display:

Flowers inserted into the holes in the fence spell out one letter per panel. In this photo we can see “K,” “F,” and “E”.

You can’t see it here (you couldn’t get a picture of the whole thing, it’s too big and it’s hard to even get this much without people in the way), but due to a pixelation accident, when all the flowers were inserted into their individual holes in the fencing, it looked exactly like the flowers spelled out

#FUCKFEDS!

I know! So weird! Much coincidence!

 

 

 

 

Sunday Night Protests: A wee spot of bother and a chaotic video

Much more to come later. Got home at 1;30 am and set some water heating for tea. Desperately needed to take a shower and get the tear gas off my skin.

It was a mostly safe night, though I got knocked down in a panic from a nearby flash-bang and several tear gas grenades/ canisters/ thingies going off at once. I honestly don’t know who knocked me down, but there were several people that bumped into me nearly simultaneously and one kicked one of my crutches out from under me. The other crutch went as soon as my weight was no longer directly over it and a different person bumped into the now-unstable crutch. I actually fell onto the backpack of someone in front of me and they slowed my fall (fortunately they also didn’t hit the ground). On the way down I got kneed in the left side, more or less. It was right next to the kidney right where my side meets my back. While on my knees I couldn’t gather my crutches and someone stepped on my heel. As my toes were pointed it couldn’t drive them into the ground, so I felt lucky not to break a toe. Almost immediately 3-4 generous people were helping to pick me up. I think one of them was the person who stepped on my heel, but I don’t really know for sure.

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