After three consecutive nights of destructive protests, some of which devolved into riots, parts of downtown Portland sported full blocks of boarded up buildings Monday afternoon as workers painted over graffiti and patched up broken windows.
Thousands gathered for peaceful protests on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but the demonstrations turned destructive each of those nights with extensive damage caused by vandals and looters.
Relatively little damage could be seen north of West Burnside Street, with Old Town and Chinatown receiving only a smattering of broken windows and anti-police graffiti. Similarly, areas west of Southwest 12th avenue appeared to have been spared from the worst destruction.
The inner core of downtown — the blocks around the Multnomah County Justice Center, the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse and Pioneer Place Mall — appear to have borne the brunt of the protests.
The Apple, Nike and Microsoft stores each had their windows completely covered with plywood. Many jewelry stores on Southwest 3rd Avenue and Southwest Broadway were similarly decked out with wood covering their windows.
The Pioneer Place Mall was boarded up on all sides.
In many cases, it was unclear whether the boards were put up ahead of the protests as a preemptive measure. In other places, workers were still removing shattered glass Monday afternoon, as was the case for the giant plate glass windows at the World Trade Center.
Construction crews clambered on scaffolding around the Hatfield courthouse, which was covered with a mosaic of graffiti. Some of the messages castigated police and others called to remember George Floyd, the man killed by police in Minneapolis last week whose death sparked the nationwide protests.
Ahead of more protests planned for Monday night, Gov. Kate Brown announced that she would be deploying a small contingent of National Guard troops to Portland with the explicit goal of protecting property in the city, freeing up local officers to focus on crowd control.
-- Kale Williams; kwilliams@oregonian.com; 503-294-4048; @sfkale
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