Protests in other cities also erupted into violence Saturday, as police grappled with small groups hijacking otherwise peaceful events, including far-right activists armed with pepper spray and wooden flagpoles.
One clash ended in fistfights after Proud Boys marched in Kalamazoo, Mich. Police intervened as the Proud Boys retreated into a parking garage, about seven minutes after a large brawl broke out between members of the far-right group and their opponents. Officers arrested some counterprotesters who had come out to oppose the right-wing group.
In Chicago, a protest also grew violent after people used umbrellas and skateboards to attack police officers, injuring 17. Twenty-four people were arrested.
And just before midnight Saturday, a group of roughly 50 protesters, most dressed in black and wearing full-face masks, descended on the 5th District police precinct in South Minneapolis.
The group lobbed rocks and fireworks at the building. The station’s front windows were sprayed with anti-police graffiti, and red paint was poured along the steps of the front entrance and the sidewalk.
“Blood on your hands,” one message read, while another referred to officers as “pigs.”
Early Saturday afternoon in Portland, far-right extremists walked around a few downtown blocks, trading barbs with antifascists. Video shows several people in the far-right crowd using pepper spray and pellets fired from paintball guns against the counterprotesters.
As the protest wrapped up, a car drove out of a parking garage, witnesses say, and one of the people inside the car pulled out a gun and fired two shots as they sped away. No one was injured.
“A blue Toyota Corolla came tearing out, and then out of the driver’s seat two shots were fired,” said Laura Jedeed, a freelance journalist who witnessed the shooting.
Video of the incident posted on social media appears to show two shots fired from the driver’s-side window of a blue car pulling out of a parking garage into the street. It’s not clear who fired the shots.
A disparity in police response was on display Saturday night, as hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters gathered outside a police building in southeast Portland.
The crowd remained peaceful for hours, but eventually a small number of people in the crowd began escalating tactics to draw out police. At least two fireworks were thrown into the driveway of the building. Two people dressed in all black approached the building and banged on the boarded-up windows, sprayed graffiti on the wall and damaged a security camera. A handful of people in the crowd threw rocks, eggs, glass bottles and plastic water bottles, which landed in the driveway of the building.
A short time later, police declared a riot. They deployed smoke and rushed the line of protesters, who had created a barrier at the property’s edge with shields. Officers then chased protesters into a residential neighborhood for almost an hour. They made 11 arrests, on charges including disorderly conduct, interfering with a peace officer and riot, among others.
Meanwhile, by Sunday morning, the bureau had not yet announced whether it is actively investigating social media reports of gunfire and a possible bomb at the right-wing event earlier in the day.