Protesters returned to downtown Portland on Monday night, leaving shattered glass and graffiti in their wake as they mixed with crowds leaving Tom McCall Waterfront Park after Fourth of July fireworks.
A social media influencer said in an interview she had finished watching the pyrotechnics and was driving home with others when they turned onto Southwest Fourth Avenue and encountered a crowd clad all in black.
In a viral TikTok video that captured what happens next, a person climbs up onto the hood of the Porsche, leaving behind a spiderweb-shaped crack. The influencer said the person stomped on the glass before climbing onto the roof of the car and jumping off.
“We stopped the car, obviously we’re not going to drive into people,” she said in an interview. “They randomly jumped on the car after I said, ‘Are they going to be peaceful?’ and just broke the window.”
Roughly 100 people gathered downtown at Lownsdale Park beginning about 9 p.m. Monday and began launching illegal fireworks and setting flags ablaze, although the fires were not significant enough to draw firefighters to the scene, a police spokeswoman said.
An hour later, the group took to the streets, with members of the crowd smashing windows of several buildings, including a bank, luxury clothing outlet, cell phone shop and restaurant, KOIN reported.
The protest was the second in two days ending in broken windows, as demonstrators also damaged several office towers on Sunday while protesting the fatal shooting of Jayland Walker by police in Akron, Ohio.
The influencer said she has no idea why she was targeted.
“We are good people and did not deserve this fear or property damage,” she said. “It was just rude.”
Authorities said they arrested a 25-year-old man just after midnight after watching him deface a building with graffiti, but there was no record of the arrest on jail logs or on court dockets as of Tuesday afternoon.
In a statement on Twitter that didn’t address any specific incident, Portland Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty said she was “disappointed” that a small group continued to vandalize downtown Portland.
“I am a passionate supporter of direct action but blindly destroying property and menacing community members changes nothing and helps no one,” Hardesty wrote.
— Zane Sparling; zsparling@oregonian.com; 503-319-7083; @pdxzane
