This story will be updated.
Update: As of 7:30 p.m. Eugene Police Department had pepper-sprayed and cleared out protesters from the courtyard of the Eugene Federal Building more than an hour after declaring an active riot there.
EPD said in a press release that some protesters had "breached" the building and gone inside. Police said they were trying to de-escalate the situation. A Eugene police officer on-site said it was a life-safety issue.
The Eugene protest
Protesters lined the streets around the federal building in downtown Eugene on Friday, holding signs and chanting to express opposition to federal immigration enforcement.
Among the participants in the first hour of the demonstration was Vivian Kelly, a disabled nurse who was doing beadwork while protesting.
"This is not a protest against Democrats or Republicans," Kelly said. "This is a protest against right and wrong."
The federal building has been the site of near-daily protests for several weeks, including one on Tuesday that resulted in several participants being detained by federal agents, who used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse the crowd.
By late afternoon Friday, protesters had pushed up against the building, banging on doors and windows, and spraying graffiti on the walls. According to the Daily Emerald, at least one window had been damaged.
The demonstration comes as part of a nationwide "general strike" called by people critical of federal agencies, including ICE.
Separately, a protest at Springfield's City Hall earlier in the afternoon drew hundreds of people before participants left on a "car caravan" around the two cities, ending at the Lane Events Center in Eugene.
There was a tense moment at that event when at several armed counter-protesters showed up, prompting jeers and confrontations with people attending the rally. A KLCC reporter on the scene said the situation was defused as one protester and one of the armed men eventually engaged in a calm conversation.
Elsewhere in Oregon
Hundreds of high school students walked out of their classes across Portland on Friday to protest an immigration enforcement crackdown nationwide, following the recent deadly shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.
Students from McDaniel High School in Northeast Portland thronged the street in the early afternoon as they marched west in a light rain. Many carried signs that read “Stop ICE Terror Now” as they chanted “This is what democracy looks like!”
Across town, students from Roosevelt High School walked out and marched down North Lombard Street, also mirroring actions across the Pacific Northwest and the country.
Roosevelt senior Jasmin Reyes-Contreras was among those marching along Lombard Street.
“We as students care about this issue,” said Reyes-Contreras. “We as students care about the funding that’s going to ICE because this is impacting everybody. I mean there’s been students who’ve gotten their parents taken away who go to Roosevelt High School.”
The Portland portion of this story was reported by OPB, with contributions from Kyra Buckley, Elizabeth Miller and Rob Manning. This content comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
