'Don't Shoot Your Mother': Portland Moms Form Defense Line For Protesters Amid Tear Gas
'Don’t shoot your mother': Portland moms form defense line for protesters amid tear gas. By Karen Floyd, Daily Kos Staff, July 22, 2020.
Federal troops were shown on video using batons to push back a line of mothers linking arms to protect protesters Tuesday night in Portland. “Don’t shoot your mother,” they shouted as they were tear-gassed. Some were shot with less-lethal bullets, but the women who had formed a group dubbed Wall of Moms remained, according to The Washington Post.
They’ve been showing up for days at protests that have been ongoing in Portland since the death of George Floyd on May 25. A Black man, Floyd died in police custody after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes. He had cried for his mother and told police he couldn’t breathe. “When you’re a mom you have this primal urge to protect kids, and not just your kids, all kids,” Wall of Moms organizer Jennie Vinson told The Washington Post. “To see a grown man reaching out and calling for his mother — I think that was a transformational moment for so many of us. It’s like: What choice do we have but to do this?”
..protests took a violent turn in recent weeks when federal troops flooded the city’s downtown, some accused in a lawsuit of failing to identify themselves and detaining protesters without explaining why they were being arrested.
In another incident, Christopher David, a Navy veteran and protester, was shown in viral video Saturday being pepper-sprayed in the face and hit with a baton by officers in camouflage. “It isn’t about me getting beat up. It’s about focusing back on the original intention of all of these protests, which is Black Lives Matter,” David told The Associated Press Monday.
..Angie Noriega, a mother of two, told The Washington Post her 7-year-old daughter feared for her safety and begged her not to attend the Portland protest. “But we talked about that and I said, ‘Sometimes we have to be brave and do the right thing even when it feels scary,’” Noriega told the newspaper...
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/7/22/1962858/--Don-t-shoot-your-mother-Portland-moms-form-defense-line-for-protesters-amid-tear-gas
