Portland May Day Rally 2017

Monday's protest descended to a riot, according to Portland police. This fire was set at the intersection of Southwest 4th Avenue and Southwest Morrison Street.

(Dave Killen/Staff)

The May Day rally on Monday was only an hour into its march through downtown before Portland police shut it down, citing vandalism and threats from so-called anarchists. And within 20 minutes, anarchists started a fire at the intersection of Southwest 4th Avenue and Southwest Morrison Street. Piled-up green and blue plastic news boxes and white commercial signs ignited quickly, erupting into orange flames and sending up a thick plume of black smoke.

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Before nightfall, a few storefront and office windows were broken, restaurant tables and chairs were dragged into the street, projectiles were thrown at police, and flash bang grenades were launched by police in riot gear. Twenty-five arrests were made. Earlier in the day, a few businesses had closed, fearing violence; and dozens of on-the-clock office workers were sent home so as not to be marooned after hours. Who could know how things would go?

If this sounds familiar, not to mention stupid and costly, you're right. Last November, masked and bat-wielding anarchists joined an otherwise peaceful march by 4,000 against the election of Donald Trump and in one short hour trashed storefronts in the Pearl District. For an uncertain 20 televised minutes, as unseen police mobilized a response, the anarchists showed Portland they really could hold the city by its throat.

If you are asking what they want, you'd be in wide company. But some things do seem clear.

In an apparent rage against The Man, they seek not to cultivate public sympathy or take a social stand but instead to derive power from destruction. It is oxymoronic for an anarchist to espouse no cause while mooching off the publicly stated causes of others assembled legally. On May Day in Portland, an estimated 50 organizations had banded together and obtained a city permit to march in support of immigrants and workers everywhere, and they were joined by rallies worldwide. But anarchists became disrupters who, like parasites hungry for a host, latched onto citizens exercising their rights to public assembly. In doing so they revealed a clear purpose: to menace and control.

The police were waiting. While some might argue their action to halt the march and make arrests was too frontal and harsh, the reality is that anarchists harshly trammel upon constitutionally warranted public assembly. They have nothing to do with democracy. They have nothing to do with work and equity, either, as their obstructionism robs wages from workers and costs employers and taxpayers. Their actions - conducted anonymously but brutally - show them to be punk fascists.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board, said he has worked with the Portland Police Bureau to set boundaries. In the November march, it was to protect against gridlock by ensuring protesters would not block bridges or highways - but things went crazy in the Pearl. On Monday, police were instructed to protect against gridlock but also to act swiftly at the first signs of vandalism or threat.

"We've set clear standards and expectations," Wheeler said, adding: "There will be zero arrests if there are zero incidents of vandalism or violence."

But Wheeler was flummoxed about the goals of the anarchists. He said that if he could ask them anything, face to unmasked face, it would be: "What are you trying to accomplish?"

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The arrested on Monday were unmasked as: Ayden Michael Foster-Wysocki, Madhab Pulle, Tyler Hans Larsen, Luis Marquez, Grahme Meneses, Jace Anthony Willis, Corey Daniel Joe, Brianna Borgen, Rachel Visco, Phoebe Loomis, Michell Korin Myers, Rylie Wolff, Lucy Elizabeth Smith, Glenn Allen Silbersdorff, Christopher Fellini, Frank Martinez, Ian Lawrence Henderson, Javier Ivan Reyes, Dan Edward Wright, Jeff Richard Singer, Taylor James Evans, John Barton Elliott and three unnamed minors.

Legitimate protesters in this city, not to mention all of Portland, deserve to know more than names. Each of the arrested is invited to state in one sentence or paragraph what anarchists are trying to accomplish and to send the statement, signed with a telephone number for identity confirmation, to: Letters@oregonian.com All responses will be published here.

This is not to lend voice to cowards but instead to inform civic conversations ahead about public protest and what it means to live in a free society.

Portland's celebrated tolerance may have, over time, enabled the anarchists. But no more. The Portland police got it right on Monday and will continue to view public assembly as a feature of democracy that needs protection and threats to it swift, consequential response.

-The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board