A protester at Sunday night’s Black Lives Matter protest in Portland opted to rap his grievances with officers, urging a cop to “fucking rap” and vowing to burn the system “to the ground.”
Video from Sunday evening’s protest in Portland shows a demonstrator rapping his confrontation, just inches away from an officer’s face.
“We’re taking back our fucking land. It ain’t yours ‘cause you stole it. I got the flow like the ocean, the roll like I’m bowlin’,” he began.
“Look. If you was a man, you would grab the microphone and you would fucking rap. Honestly homie, we would give you props. We just want all the bullshit to stop,” he continued, later adding that protesters are going to burn the whole system “to the ground.”
“Y’all cops just ignore the shit that we say, that’s why we’re gonna burn it today. Fuck the whole system. It’s ‘bout to burn to the ground,” he continued as the officer stood calmly.
Meanwhile, authorities in the city responded to violence and unrest for yet another night in Portland, resulting in several arrests. According to the Portland Police Bureau (PPB), demonstrators lit a large fire outside of the North Precinct:
Shortly after arriving, the crowd began chanting, among other things, “burn it down.” Some dragged a mattress into the street, Northeast Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard at Northeast Emerson Street, and lit it on fire. Because it was not an immediate threat to life safety or structures, officers remained far back and did not engage. Another mattress was added to the fire, as was some yard debris. The larger fire began to send lit embers into the air. Multnomah County has a burn ban in effect due to extremely dry conditions. Portland Fire and Rescue expressed concern about the danger the fire posed to the community. Portland Police notified the gathering that firefighters would be moving in to extinguish the fire. When police moved forward to secure the area, the majority of the crowd moved back. However, one arrest was made. Portland Fire and Rescue put out the mattress fire and then officers disengaged.
Several of those arrested had weapons, including a stun gun, baton, a “glass jar filled with flammable liquid,” and “an accelerant and a slugging weapon known as a slung shot,” per the PPB: