Portland sees 100 days of anti-racism stir

Portland police made multiple arrests overnight on Friday a day ahead of Oregon city marking 100 days of demonstrations against US racism and police brutality, which have at times turned violent.
Police arrested 27 people, mostly on charges of interfering with law enforcement or disorderly conduct after not complying with orders to clear the area where they assembled and throwing items at officers. One arrested protester was injured with a “bleeding abrasion” on her head, police said.
Demonstrations against racism and police brutality have swept the US since the death in May of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Portland has become the epicentre of demonstrations, with protests taking place nightly over the last three months calling for policing and social justice reforms. These have at times turned into clashes between demonstrators and officers, as well as between right- and leftwing groups. Police shot and killed a self-declared anti-fascist activist in Washington state on Thursday night as they moved in to arrest him on suspicion he fatally shot a right-wing counterprotester last weekend in Portland.
Meanwhile, Jacob Blake, the 29-year-old black man whose shooting by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, reignited nationwide protests over racism and police brutality, pleaded not guilty on Friday to criminal charges filed prior to the shooting. A complaint accuses Blake of criminal trespass, third-degree sexual assault and disorderly conduct based on statements by his exgirlfriend at the time, the mother of three of his children, who told police Blake broke into her home on May 3.