'It was scary': Residents near Portland ICE building frustrated with recent protests
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- Across the street from the Portland ICE building is Gray's Landing, an affordable housing development in the south waterfront community with mostly seniors and veteran residents. Many say while they support peaceful protests against ICE, they are frustrated with the damage to their neighborhood.
"The weekend protests were very peaceful. It is fabulous. But when it gets out of hand, people cause damage to other people and property. It's just so counterproductive," said one neighbor who wanted to be anonymous.
Teague Stapleton lives in Gray's Landing. He said he sympathizes with what the protesters are doing. But said the weekend protest was frightening.
"It was scary," said Stapleton. "When they first started the protest, I was confused because I didn't know where the flash bangs were coming from. The police or from the protesters."
People living in nearby apartments say they are still feeling in impacts of Saturday night's tear gas.
"It's been in our apartment or been in my apartment a lot…I can't open my windows because there's constant updrafts," said Chandler Baduy who lives in a different building down the street.
Several businesses say they lost business and are now dealing with physical damages to their buildings.
"There's an attitude called don't police or other people's actions and I can support that," said Baduy. "I would rather if we didn't need to do that. I personally think it's bad strategy, right?"
KOIN 6 spoke with several protesters who have been out here throughout the weekend about how they feel about what the neighbors are saying.
"I understand about the graffiti on the independent buildings and the residential buildings however I am not upset about this building at all, whatsoever. If there is graffiti on this building, it's well deserved," said one protester who chose not to be named.
"I understand it can be. And convenience, and I'm sure that is frustrating, but imagine the inconvenience of losing your father," said Rocio Leon, another protester.
To recap, after the Saturday No Kings March in Portland, which drew tens of thousands of people, protests at the ICE building grew.
On Saturday night, ICE agents used tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper balls and paint guns in an attempt to subdue the crowd. Protesters broke the doors of the ICE building, spray painted the building and buildings around it and threw water bottles and other objects back at the ICE building. The protest was later classified as a riot by police.
Andrew Joliet lives a few blocks away from the ICE building. He is frustrated that Mayor Wilson and the DA's office aren't being tougher on the protesters.
"One of the reasons why I think Nathan Vasquez got in was people were hoping that someone would come in who would be tougher on crime and actually prosecute people who are breaking the law. Which to me isn't a crazy idea. Like if someone breaks the law, they need to be prosecuted. So that they don't do it again," Joliet said.
KOIN reached out to the DA's office. In a statement, Vazquez said, "We can only prosecute the cases that are given to us. So far we have charged 19 of the 20 cases police have brought to us."
"Keith Wilson should come down to South Waterfront and see what these people are doing, because what's been going on for the last week is not peaceful. These people are literally destroying a federal building," said Joliet.
Mayor Wilson's office released a statement saying in part, "Mayor Wilson continues to actively monitor ongoing events and coordinate with public safety officials."