Credit Sergio Olmos / OPB
Demonstrations in Salem that devolved into tense confrontations downtown on New Year’s Day led to three arrests, the Salem Police Department said on Saturday.
“I’ve been doing crowd control with the Salem Police Department now about 15 years,” Salem Police Lt. Treven Upkes said of the Friday events. “For strictly just a Salem event, that was one of the largest we’d seen.”
Around 2 p.m. protesters marched from the Capitol to Mahonia Hall, the governor’s official residence. Police said many walked in the street, blocked intersections and splintered into different groups.
A group of Proud Boys, a far-right group that has attracted white supremacists and engaged in violence at other demonstrations, broke off toward Bush’s Pasture Park, where antifascist activists had staged a counter-protest. In an official statement Saturday, Salem police said both groups were armed.