A rioter threw a large Molotov cocktail at police during a riot Wednesday night after a grand jury in Louisville, Kentucky, indicted one police officer for wanton endangerment but declined to issue indictments directly for the death of Breonna Taylor.
One officer was mildly injured, though police were able to act quickly to stop the spread of the flames, according to a department press release.
Rioters also attacked a police precinct directly, smashing upper floor windows with rocks, and setting fire to the exterior of the building.
A police press release reported:
Around 9:45 p.m., a group of nearly 75 people began gathering on the Central Precinct side of the Justice Center located in the 1100 block of Southwest 2nd Avenue. The group stood in the street blocking vehicular traffic on Southwest 2nd Avenue. Members in the group began throwing softball sized rocks towards Central Precinct which shattered the glass windows above the entry doors. The group continued to throw rocks through the windows which continued to shatter glass in the entryway of Central Precinct making it difficult for officers to safely exit the precinct due to the glass falling and the glass that covered the entryway floor. Once the window was broken, group members used slingshots to launch projectiles at a high velocity through the broken glass windows of Central Precinct. Some members of the group attempted to break into the front doors of the Central Precinct lobby.
…Even though the group was told to exit the area and the street, they still stood of outside Central Precinct and continued their criminal behavior. At 10:06 p.m., officers began to disperse the crowd blocking Southwest 2nd Avenue outside of Central Precinct. As officers dispersed the crowd, both commercial grade fireworks and glass bottles were thrown towards them.
Rioters also used lasers and commercial-grade fireworks to attack police.
The Oregonian reported that federal police officers were also involved in dispersing the crowd.
Portland has been the scene of riots almost every night since the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the end of May. But Wednesday night’s violence was particularly intense.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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