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Video captured by WW photographer Alex Wittwer late Friday night shows Portland protesters smashing in the windows of the Multnomah County Justice Center and setting fires in office cubicles.
Protesters marched into downtown following a peaceful vigil in North Portland's Peninsula Park for George Floyd, a black man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis on May 26. Protests have erupted nationwide in the days following Floyd's death.
In Portland, some 1,000 protesters walked across the Burnside Bridge, carrying signs and lighting flares. A crowd gathered along Southwest 3rd Avenue in front of the Justice Center. Some of the protesters smashed in the courthouse's windows and set fires in the cubicles.
Police deployed flash-bang grenades shortly after 11 pm. Read more here.
For the next two hours, reporters posted photos and videos of vandalism across downtown, including looting at Target department store and a fire set inside a Chase Bank.
The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office said that corrections records staff were working inside the Justice Center when protesters smashed windows and began setting fires inside the courthouse. Sheriff's officials said staff were able to evacuate to another part of the building and sprinklers doused the fires.
It was not clear if any prisoners were the Multnomah County Jail, which is located in the same building, at the time of the fires. No injuries have been officially announced at that location.
"I am incredibly disappointed in Friday night's actions that put staff, adults in custody and the public in extreme risk," Sheriff Mike Reese said in a statement. "This could have had tragic consequences in a corrections setting."
Photos of the march and protest:
