Tension rises in Louisville as right-wing and left-wing groups clash at racial justice demonstrations

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Two groups of armed activists faced off in downtown Louisville Saturday, sending protesters running for cover in fear of gunfire, hours before the Kentucky Derby was set to begin in defiance of calls from local activists to cancel it.

The two groups — one pro-police and the other supporting racial justice — met in a city square where demonstrations for Breonna Taylor, the emergency medical technician killed by police in March, have long gathered, hung her photos and placed flowers.

"U-S-A!" the pro-police group chanted, and "Back the blue!"

"Say her name," the others chanted back. "Breonna Taylor!"

After a period of tension that sent people scattering, police in riot gear gathered, and the crowd eventually parted ways peacefully. Many more protesters amassed at Churchill Downs racetrack, where they had also met on Friday chanting, "No justice, no Derby."

Protests are planned across the country during the Labor Day weekend, the latest round of demonstrations in a historic summer that began with the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in May. Portland, in particular, is bracing for two major protests that organizers have planned to remain peaceful, but have sparked worries about the potential for more violence after a deadly incident in Portland and in Kenosha, Wis., last week.

Protesters in the West Coast city are gathering at a downtown park Saturday to mark 100 consecutive days of demonstrations for racial equity and police reform. On Monday, pro-Trump activists are rallying to honor 39-year-old Aaron "Jay" Danielson, a supporter of the far-right Patriot Prayer, who was killed after a similar event a week ago. The shooter, 48-year-old Michael Forest Reinoehl, was a vocal supporter of far-left causes and was fatally shot by federal officers as they moved to arrest him in Washington state Thursday.

Leaders of Patriot Prayer also planned to hold a vigil for Danielson on Saturday in neighboring Vancouver, Wash.

The day of protests in Portland started on a mellow note as small crowds gathered at a pair of parks on the eastern side of the city to listen to speakers.

At a park named for Martin Luther King Jr., about 100 people gathered before 1 p.m. seated in small groups distanced apart on a baseball field and listened to speakers who sounded messages of unity and peace. One woman led the group for a mindful meditation exercise.

Ryon Nicholson, a 42-year-old White man, walked around the park wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt and holding his biracial daughter, Nora.

He had watched the protests over the past several months longing to join, but wary of the potential for violence as the sole breadwinner for his partner and the four children they raise. The quiet defiance at the park, however, felt comfortable to join.

"Here we are another 100 days later and nobody is letting up and if anything. It's heating up," said Nicholson, a wholesale cannabis distributor.

"This seems like a racial reckoning right now and a real opportunity for change, and have to strike while the opportunity is hot," he said. "At the same time, I'm skeptical because the systems of oppression, they don't want this to happen."

He said he hoped his daughter could grow up in a world free of oppression but feared white nationalists from out of town coming to Portland.

"You could almost call it like a race war when you break it down in a lot of ways," he said.

Since Floyd's death, activists have faced off nearly nightly in Portland with police officers, state troopers and other law enforcement outside police precincts, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building and elsewhere. Officers have used tear gas, munitions and batons to break up crowds and some evenings have descended into mayhem as protesters have set small fires or hurled projectiles at law enforcement.

The weekend of protests began with a similar clash outside a Portland police union building in the northern part of the city. More than 200 demonstrators packed the street in front of a building protected by a line of dozen state troopers. After a nearly two hour standstill, police in riot gear arrived on the scene and broke up the crowds with the troopers. They detained multiple protesters, including one whose face appeared to be bloodied, drawing jeers and enraging the crowd further.

Elsewhere, the weekend began with violence in New York state. Several people were arrested after the third night of violence in the city of Rochester on Friday into Saturday morning, with protesters angry over the March death of Daniel Prude, a Black man whom police hooded and pinned to the ground in a graphic video that was released and drew an outcry this week. And in New York City, protesters caused more than $100,000 worth of damage to Lower Manhattan Starbucks stores, banks and a drugstore, according to the New York Post.

In Louisville, the normally ebullient city had a subdued air, with temperature checks at various businesses and more security in the streets. Derby officials were much criticized for trying to hold the 146th annual running of the horse race amid the pandemic, as well as the nationwide debate over race. Taylor has become a national symbol of police brutality since Floyd's death, her face now emblazoned on billboards through the city demanding justice in her case, commissioned by Oprah Winfrey's magazine.

But they decided to go ahead anyway, without spectators, issuing a statement that said: "We are not doing enough, quickly enough. That is true in our country, in our city and in our sport" and said that the race's atmosphere "will be different this year as we respond to those calls for change."

Not everybody believed the race should have been held, or that the protests were a positive for the city.

Reggie Batten, a 30-year Black resident of the city, said he thought the Derby was too frivolous to hold right now in this nation's moment.

"There's too much going on," he said. "They should be focused basically on what's going on in the world and find a realistic way to get along."

He was standing in Jefferson Square, watching the pro-police and Black Lives Matter protesters face off.

"They're looting our town. They're hurting ourselves. They're fighting [against] what we're fighting for," he said.

Nirappil reported from Portland. Gowen reported from Breckenridge, Colo.