One person was shot dead in Portland, Oregon on Saturday as clashes between anti-racist protesters and supporters of Donald Trump, local police said on Sunday.
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Portland has been the epicenter of frequent protests against police violence in the United States since the death of George Floyd, a black forty-something who died of suffocation below the knee of a white police officer, in May. This movement was rekindled when Jacob Blake, another African American, was seriously injured by police gunfire in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
According to local media reports, a “trailer of several hundred cars” driven by supporters of President Donald Trump had also gathered in downtown Portland.
The local police reported on Twitter “violence between demonstrators and counter-demonstrators” and indicated that “police officers intervened and in some cases made arrests”.
However, the police did not say whether the shooting which killed a victim was directly linked to the protests.
The shooting took place at around 8.45 p.m. local time in the city center, police said in a statement, adding that a homicide investigation was underway.
Police “heard shots coming from the neighborhood (..) and found on the spot a victim shot in the chest,” said the statement.