For ordering the firing of potentially fatal rubber bullets without warning... PORTLAND, Ore. - Police acted appropriately in firing rubber bullets at protesters during President Bush's visit last week, Police Chief Mark Kroeker said Monday. Shortly before 5 p.m. Thursday, Portland police, struggling to deal with demonstrators, tried to move the crowd farther away from the downtown Hilton Portland. Police said they gave oral commands to move back and tried to push demonstrators back with their batons. When the protesters did not move, they doused the crowd with pepper spray. At another point, three Portland police cars carrying a reserve group of officers drove through the crowd, trying to move their vehicles behind the barricades. When a handful of demonstrators leaped onto one car, banging on its windows, two Portland officers fired rubber stingballs. A third Portland officer fired rubber projectiles at another demonstrator who he said was about to hurl an object at police. Kroeker said the rubber bullets were fired to protect officers. "I think it was absolutely appropriate," he said. "That was absolutely proper." Police Commissioner Vera Katz declined comment after she met with Kroeker and his staff for more than an hour Monday. Her aides said Katz did not want to discuss the incident before reviewing footage of the clash. As the mayor and police continue to review police actions, they're also fielding calls, e-mails and letters from people angered by the police response, including Republican donors who criticized the police for failing to provide a safe passage for them into the Hilton. "About 80 percent of the contacts have been critical," said Sarah Bott, the mayor's spokeswoman. http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0827bushprotest-ON.html The news shows made it crystal clear that there was no warning given before the police attacked the crowd--or rather, that the vast majority could not hear the order to disperse. Vera Katz is the mayor of Portland, not the police commissioner as the article says. And she and the rest of the city council had no problem rolling out the red carpet to the Feds and their Joint Task Force on Domestic Terrorism a year and half-ago which resulted in the recent activist raids and arrests.
