Reaction from attorney and U.S. Commission on Civil Rights member Peter Kirsanow.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chants,
what are dewant
justice?
When do we want it
now?
The city of Portland, reaching a
grim milestone this morning, one hundred
straight days of violent riots,
more than seventy rioters facing
federal charges, since
demonstrations began in late May,
with no apparent end in sight
here to react. Peter Kirsanow, on
the? U DOT S commission on civil
rights,
Peter! Thank you for being here
this morning,
even more arrests last night,
if you would talk to us about
the implications of this kind of
prolonged violence, rioting and
looting,
what does it do to a city? And
what would you compare it to
yeah? You know we dont
really have a comparison, because
no other cities had one hundred
consecutive days of rioting and
with the egregious and occasion
Ofabridge an occasion, dot others hav
measures to staunch the
violence.
In this case I wont, say they
have been promoting their
violence but giving Tacet
approval to the violence
even more limited capacity. We do
have historical analogies.
You look at Detroit, for
example, back in the 1960s, my
hometown of Cleveland, in the
1960s and host of other cities
that experienced rioting,
usually just over two or three
days.
The rioting may have been more
widespread and violence a little
bit more profound. We see what
the impact is
again. One hundred days of consecutive
days of violence in Portland
suggests that the dynamic that
we saw back in the 1960s may
prevail here.
Look at Detroit
Detroit at the time was one of
the wealthiest cities in the
entire world.
They had a population of one point: six million
one point: six million
it has a population of six hundred thousand
within short order. Nearly a
million people left in my home
town of Cleveland. We had sixty percent
contraction of the population.
People who could flee, fled
businesses that could flee, fled
PETE. Why are they fleeing
Peter? What is the dynamic that
makes them say? Okay, this is
over
im not going to rebuild
im going to move. Do something
else:
crime, property damage.
Businesses have been allowed to
suffer the cops in Portland at
least what I have seen have
tried to do, the best they can
given the stance of the
administration, which is frankly
pathetic stance, border wall
negligence.
When you have an administration,
we didnt have this in the one hundred and ninety six
0z, whether you have an
administration sitting idly by
and approving whats going on,
not almost approving, approving
the protest and, by extension, the
riots wouldnt condemn it
because have you, businesses who
can flee flee
property damage is
extraordinary.
If you can leave you leave
now, Portland has slightly different graphics than some of
different graphics than some of
the other cities. Do
it was a growing city at the
time it may not have the type
of flight that some of the other
cities had, but its going to
experience that also going to
experience a surge of surge in
crime see that in every other
city
PETE more recent example is
Baltimore.
You see these types of riots,
we cover them.
We see the arrests, the looting,
the rioting, the arson, but its
the people that are left to pick
up
real, quick
right
so Baltimore after Freddie
Gray, Ferguson, St Louis after
the Michael Brown situation
replicated far more widespread
in Portland
Demographics different in
Portland, but similar dynamic.
This was incredible. Abdication
of government responsibility.
I cant believe citizens would
put up with this
PETE. Hopefully they dont have
to
crime roots. Urban decay live.
Transcript generated on 2020-09-08.