A movement dismissed by media as not “a real thing” and by FBI Director Christopher Wray as “an ideology” was engaged in violent clashes at the Oregon Capitol in Salem on Sunday at a “right-wing” event billed as a Freedom Rally
FoxNews.com reported Salem Police arrested at least three people and urged others to stay away from the Capitol building as violence linked to “Antifa-aligned protesters” broke out.
CBS News reported: “Shortly before noon, approximately 100 individuals wearing black clothing and ballistic vests and carrying firearms, bats, skateboards, umbrellas, shields and gas masks arrived on the Capitol Mall grounds. Some individuals from the group carried Youth Liberation Front flags, a group known to espouse left-wing ideologies.”
The violence began a short time later.
“Victims reported their vehicles were damaged by paint filled balloons, rocks and other hard objects being thrown at them as they passed,” Fox News reported. “One vehicle sustained significant damage after a large tree limb was thrown through the front window into the vehicle’s passenger seat.”
Several criminal investigations have since been launched, Salem police said.
A man was ordered onto the ground by officers after drawing a weapon when his truck, flying an American flag, was vandalized and he was surrounded by members of a crowd, mostly wearing black, and pepper-sprayed.
Another angle of the man who was arrested. #Antifa had vandalized his truck, surrounded him and pepper-sprayed him. #AntifaRiots pic.twitter.com/GTMjSmvSRT
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) March 28, 2021
The Washington Examiner reported video also captured of “left-wing protesters dressed in black and spray-painting across the man’s windshield and smashing the truck’s taillights.”
The The local Statesman Journal reported police declared the anti-fascist protest an “unlawful assembly.”
The report said, “Anti-fascist protesters on the sidewalks and in the street threw objects, such as paint-filled balloons and rocks, at a number of vehicles that drove by the Capitol with American flags and right-wing support flags, breaking some vehicles’ windows.”
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