SAN FRANCISCO, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Police in Portland, the largest city in the U.S. northwest state of Oregon, tried hard Sunday to separate crowds of protesters supporting Donald Trump and those against the president.
In the downtown standoff between the two groups which had lasted for hours from morning till late afternoon, the local police force, joined by state and federal law enforcement officers, seized a large number of weapons including knives and other dangerous items.
The Portland Police Bureau posted a series of messages on its Twitter social media account to update on the situation and warn against violence.
"Protesters should stay with their groups, not attempt to cross streets to escalate tensions," one Twitter posting warned the crowds, the size of each was estimated to be thousands.
"People who cross the street to agitate opposing groups may be arrested," another posting warned.
The pro-Trump protest, called Free Speech Rally, had been planned for Sunday afternoon by a conservative group, known as Patriot Prayer.
After the May 26 stabbing of three men, resulting in the death of two, who tried to stop a suspected white supremacist harassing two teenagers, one of them presumably a Muslim, with religious and racial slurs on a Metropolitan Area Express light-rail train, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler cited fear for violence and urged, though unsuccessfully, to cancel the event.
At a similar right-wing protest in April, Jeremy Joseph Christian, the 35-year-old stabbing suspect now in custody, was seen giving a Nazi salute.
As of Sunday afternoon, a larger crowd showed up near Portland City Hall for the Antifa, or Antifascist, demonstration, and surrounded a public plaza where the pro-Trump protest was held.
Shown in a live video feed from The Oregonian/OregonLive reporters, tensions were high at some moments between the two sides as they shouted against each other.
By about 4:30 p.m. (2330GMT), pro-Trump protesters, some of them claiming to be from as far as states of Texas and California, were leaving.
The police ordered the other crowd to disperse from the downtown streets, and then used "chemical munition" in response to bricks and other projectiles thrown at officers.
While some minor injuries among protesters were reported, Portland Police Bureau posted at 7:00 p.m. (0200GMT, Monday) pictures of an additional "collection of weapons" seized and said 14 arrests were made throughout the day.
