Occupy Portland: About 1,000 march in downtown, shut down several businesses; seven arrested
By Anne Saker | March 1, 2012 | The Oregonian
About 1,000 people marched Wednesday through downtown in an Occupy Portland demonstration against corporate influence in politics, setting off bits of street theater in opposition to the American Legislative Exchange Council.
The march was peaceful with only a brief confrontation with mounted police officers and riot-geared state troopers outside the Wells Fargo branch in the Wells Fargo Center.
Occupy Portland came up with the F29 protest against the council, and the idea spread to at least 70 cities in the United States. Marchers defied a driving rain for much of the afternoon, and some carried yellow umbrellas provided by the Portland Action Lab, which helped to organize the march.
Along the way, demonstrators went into the downtown McDonalds, stopped at the Verizon outlet on Southwest Broadway and circled the Wells Fargo Center to demand that those companies and others withdraw from the council – which writes model legislation that leans right politically.
Janet Nedry from Southwest Portland said she had come out in the bad weather “because I want to support people who are putting themselves out there to bring change to this country.”
Portland Police Bureau spokesman Lt. Robert King said seven people were arrested during the march – three who bike-locked themselves at the Wells Fargo Center, two along the route for criminal mischief and two at the Bank of America for criminal trespass.
— Anne Saker, Twitter @dwtnPDXreporter
Prison Industry Divestment Movement 