What started out as a beautiful day with families, teachers, nurses, kids, dogs, and bikes gathering at Elizabeth Caruthers Park for a labor-organized “ICE Out” march turned out to be one of the most frightening – and galvanizing – events of my life.
The group gathered peacefully, with the hope of making it clear that ICE is not welcome in Portland. We chanted “ICE Out!” as we marched up Moody Street, proud to be making our voices heard and comforted by the shared passion of the people we moved with. “The Warmth of Community Melts ICE,” read a handmade sign carried by an elderly man in the crowd.
As we approached Bancroft Street, the ICE facility that represented so much pain and fear was visible, but not close enough that engaging with federal officers seemed at all imminent or likely.
Without warning, or any demand to disperse, men in heavy military gear appeared on the ICE facility’s lower rooftop and began launching tear gas and flash bangs directly into the crowd. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Within seconds, they’d fired several rounds. In shock, I started filming – sure that what we were experiencing mattered, but not sure what it meant – until the smoke began traveling through the manmade valley of high-rise buildings where thousands of us were gathered.
As the gas filled the glass and steel canyon that we once called Moody Street, it became clear that I – we all – needed to get out of the rolling clouds of poison. Everyone around me screamed and choked; people sobbed and vomited. My instinct was to protect; to help anyone I could. But the burning, nausea, and smoke made it impossible to do anything but trudge carefully towards clean, cold air.
As I rounded the corner onto Lowell Street, I could barely hold my eyes open, and I struggled to focus and push forward. I got separated from my partner and his mother in the chaos and could only hope they were moving away from the popping and plumes of gas, too. When the shooting of flashbangs started, his mother had screamed, “stay together!” Her words rattled in my head as I imagined them together, worried about me while I worried about them, as we all tried to escape the madness.
When I made it down the next block, I could finally breathe mostly clean air as snot poured from my nose and my blurry eyes adjusted. When I found my partner, I sobbed, reflecting to him about the little girl I’d seen vomiting yellow liquid.
Our urine has been neon yellow on-and-off for two days now. We’ve been at various times nauseous, suffering from headaches, and nursing sore throats and eyes. I’m rattled, I’m tired, and the thought of eating makes me think of my wailing friends and neighbors, shocked and terrified – so I can’t.
But the physical symptoms are just that; they’ll pass.
It’s the heartbreak I know I won’t ever shake. And it’s the heartbreak I will let galvanize my heart, steel my spine, and ratify my resolve to keep fighting.
I write this for you today, not to scare you, that’s their job, but to tell you what is real, what is being ignored or outright lied about in the streets of a country I love. I don’t want you to be frightened. I don’t want you to lose hope. I want you to read what I saw and let it make you more sure that your action is critical.
I’ve never been more proud to be an American, I’ve never been more heartbroken to be an American, and I’ve never believed more that dissent is patriotic. I’m going to rest, let my body heal, and keep peacefully protesting. I hope you will, too.
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