by Alex Zielinski
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Nov 16, 2020 at 3:20 pm
Portland police face a line of protesters during June demonstrations. Mathieu Lewis-Rolland
Portland police have used force—in the form of rubber bullets, baton strikes, tear gas volleys, and other acts—more than 6,000 times against Portlanders protesting police violence and racism this year.
This information comes from two newly-updated reports from the Portland Police Bureau (PPB), documenting officer use of force data for the second and third quarters of 2020, a period spanning April 1 and September 30. On Friday, the
Mercury shared data from the second quarter report, which found that, in the first 32 days of Portland's protests—which began on May 29—PPB officers used force against protesters 2,378 times. The release of the third quarter's data offers a more comprehensive look at the damage inflicted on Portlanders by police this year through what PPB calls "crowd control." Combined, PPB used force at least 6,249 times against members of the public during 2020's second and third quarters.