Portland Police Try To Fend Off Angry Mob By Disclosing The Man They Shot Is White – The Federalist

The Portland Police Bureau tried to fend off an angry mob of rioters on Thursday by disclosing that a man shot in an officer confrontation was white.

There is erroneous information being circulated on social media regarding in the officer involved shooting in the Lloyd district. We can confirm that the subject involved is an adult white male. No one else was injured, Portland Police tweeted on Thursday night.

Chief of Police Chuck Lovell said that preliminary information suggests officer encountered a very difficult and dynamic situation that no officer wants to face, but that did not stop a crowd of protestors from forming at the scene shortly after the man who was shot was taken to the hospital.

As the night went on, reports suggest that the crowd went from protesting to rioting.

Police said people in the crowd threw objects and that someone grabbed an officers baton. Another officer intervened and was sprayed with a chemical, a local news outlet reported.

The unrest sparked a response from the citys police department which has struggled to manage riots over the last year and recently experienced a mass exodus of officers over a fellow officers indictment and dangerous mob situations.

An Oregon newspaper used the same attention-shifting tactic in April when it included the race of a white man who was fatally shot by police in its coverage. The Oregonian later clarified that they included the mans race because it was important in light of social unrest prompted by police shootings of Black people.

Recent shootings include Daunte Wright, who was killed by police in a Minneapolis suburb earlier this week, and two killings in Clark County in recent months, the publication explained, nodding to the fact that those fatal shootings sparked rioting, looting, and other destruction.

Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

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Portland Police Try To Fend Off Angry Mob By Disclosing The Man They Shot Is White - The Federalist