A person was shot dead on Saturday in Portland (Oregon, Northwestern United States) under confused circumstances, during an evening of clashes between anti-racist protesters and supporters of Donald Trump, local police said on Sunday.
• Read also: Trump Tuesday in Kenosha, scene of the Jacob Blake affair
Portland has been the site of daily protests against police violence in the United States since the death of George Floyd, a black forty-something who died of suffocation under the knee of a white police officer, last May. This movement was rekindled when Jacob Blake, another African American, was seriously injured by police gunfire in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Several hundred cars driven by supporters of the US president, with pro-Trump flags and signs, converged in an organized line in Portland on Saturday, including in the downtown area where Black Lives Matter protesters are located.
Local police reported “violence between demonstrators and counter-demonstrators” and indicated that “police intervened and in some cases made arrests”.
The shooting took place at approximately 8:45 p.m. local time in the city center, police said in a statement, adding that a homicide investigation was underway.
Police “heard shots coming from the neighborhood and they found a victim on the spot shot in the chest,” the statement said.
It is not known under what circumstances he was shot and it is not known whether his death was linked to the protests.
According to photographs, the deceased man was wearing a “Patriot Prayer” cap, a local far-right group active against the anti-racist protests that have occupied the city for three months.
Donald Trump responded with dozens of tweets and retweets on Sunday morning, criticizing the action of the Democratic Mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler, and his refusal to call the National Guard, and denouncing more broadly what he considers to be the laxity of the cities run by democrats in the face of delinquency and violence.
“Our great National Guard could solve these problems in less than an hour,” he said.
“The people of Portland aren’t going to put up with this lack of security any longer. The mayor is an IDIOT. Send the National Guard! ”, Added the American president, calling for the restoration of“ law and order ”.
The Republican billionaire, candidate for a second term in the presidential election of November 3, had sent during his inaugural speech at the Republican convention the same message of firmness, condemning the riots and looting, especially in Kenosha where he will visit Tuesday, the scene of anti-racist demonstrations enamelled with violence.
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