#Portland police arrest multiple protesters on 99th day of unrest

The Friday night demonstrations came despite calls for peace from Gov. Kate Brown and other Oregon elected officials. It was the 99th straight day of protest in the liberal city.

A black-clad crowd of several hundred protesters gathered outside the police union building that’s been one site of ongoing demonstrations.

“Yes, we have made multiple arrests tonight,” a Portland Police spokesman told Reuters in an emailed statement, which did not give a specific number of arrests.

The arrests came after police declared an unlawful assembly around midnight, according to Oregon Public Radio journalist Sergio Olmos, who posted videos and photos of confrontations on Twitter. Blood could be seen on the street where some people were detained, Olmos and The Associated Press reported.

One apparent protester responded to his images with a tweet that said, “Looking forward to Day 100. They can’t stop us. We own the streets.”

Brown, the governor, had begged for an end to the nightly marches.

“There needs to be a community-wide effort to stop the violence,” Brown said, The Oregonian reported.

“Because the violence must stop, period,” Brown said in a statement the day after police killed the suspected gunman in a fatal shooting a week ago of a right-wing demonstrator. “So we must do both things: we must be tireless in our pursuit of racial justice. We must be tireless in our pursuit of accountability for law enforcement. And we must also work together, with responsible law enforcement, to end violence, and arson, in Portland. And this must happen immediately.”

Separately, more than 90 officials from the city and three surrounding counties signed a letter to the broader community urging people to exercise their rights to free speech without resorting to violence.