North Portland community bands together as Portland nears 100 days of protests
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PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) — Protests have affected multiple neighborhoods and businesses around Portland, including Po’ Shines Café De La Soul, where a crowd of about 200 people gathered on Friday night to protest.
Demonstrators started Kenton Park, chanting as the marched through north Portland streets to the Portland Police Association building. Many officers were present as people marched on Friday, which marked the 99th day of protests in Portland. Demonstrators received several warnings from Portland police over the loudspeaker early Friday night.
John Torbert, the general manager of Po’ Shines in Portland’s Kenton neighborhood, says the protests have caused the community to band together to protect businesses from damage.
Torbert says one night, a group of neighbors formed a human chain to protect businesses in the Kenton neighborhood. He says the group marching the night respected the boundary and went on. He says the most damage he’s seen was a dumpster outside his restaurant set on fire. He says he wants the movement to get back on track, because the violence is detracting from it. On Friday, he said he prayed for peace and an end to the violence.
“The Black Lives Matter movement is really about peace, justice, and now, what we need to do is look at changing legislation, laws, and putting things into place so we can begin to prosper as a people and make the changes that are going to affect the generations behind us, so it’s not just about us right now,” Torbert said.
Inside and outside, the restaurant has posted photos in its windows of people who were killed by police. Torbert says they’ve formed a neighborhood watch and people on Friday will make sure businesses are safe.
FOX 12 on Friday also spoke with Najee Gow, who is part of the Black Lives Matter movement. He said the message of the movement is being diluted by violence.
“We gotta remind the public that we’re founded in 2013 and we are a peaceful movement that is looking to reform the police department. We’re not looking to abolish, we said reform the police department,” Gow said.
He said more specifically, the Black Lives Matter movement wants police to have more hours of training before going full time on the job and to have social workers respond to calls that deal with mental health and homelessness.
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