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The streets of Portland turned into the Wild West on Sunday night when a man wearing a purple scarf and beige boonie hat crouched over a trash can and opened fire on a group of protesters.
The gunman, identified by cops as Dennis G. Anderson, also appeared to dodge a volley of gunfire during dust in downtown Portland. The crash followed a Proud Boys reunion in an abandoned KMart parking lot earlier today.
No injuries were reported in the shooting.
Anderson was taken into custody shortly after the shooting and charged with illegal possession of a firearm and illegal use of a weapon. It was not clear if the suspect was part of a group of protesters.
Videos of the downtown shooting posted on social networks. In the video, Anderson shoots a handgun and dodges the fire behind a trash can on a street corner.
Left-wing activist Dustin Brandon Ferreira, 37, told the newspaper the man used an insult against a black man in his group and then fired several bullets in their direction.
According to The Oregonian, the shooter told one of his reporters that the left-wing activists were “the real fascists” earlier in the afternoon.
In the northeast of the city, far-right activists moved their protest to the parking lot of an abandoned K-Mart, where videos appeared to show the group firing paintball guns at passing vehicles and overturn a van accessible to people with reduced mobility.
The event was organized to commemorate the violent clashes that took place in the city on August 22 last year.
Groups also clashed on this side of town, where both sides were armed with bats, chemical spray and other weapons.
Proud Boys member Tusitala “Tiny” Toese told The Oregonian his group had moved their event to the northeast of the city to avoid clashes with counter-protesters.
“We moved the rally to avoid altercation and violence between us and the people on the left, but if they show up here we will defend ourselves,” Toese said.
PPB chief Chuck Lovell said on Friday his department lost 145 agents compared to the same period last year, as the office struggled to retain and recruit new agents.
Due to the constraints, he said his officers would not be able to participate in planned marches that could turn violent, and warned that they would not do so on Sunday.
“As reported prior to today’s events, officers were not deployed to position themselves between individuals intending to clash,” PPB said in a press release on the incidents on Sunday evening. who did not recognize the shooting.
“But that does not mean that the crimes committed will not be dealt with. Arrests do not always happen on the spot. As in such past events, we conduct follow-up investigations, gather evidence and make arrests when there are likely reasons why specific people have committed crimes.
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