Authorities in Portland, Oregon, clashed with residents trying to save the dumped goods from a dumpster on Tuesday after power outages spread throughout the city due to winter storms.
About a dozen Portland police officers confronted a group of people at a local Fred Meyer, according to The Oregonian.
People started gathering around the dumpster around 2:30 p.m., according to the newspaper, and within hours, police officers came to guard the dumpster.
Morgan Mckniff, an open-ended Portland police activist and critic, told The Oregonian that employees guarded dumpsters before police arrived. According to Mckniff, about 15 people gathered at the store to collect discarded food. The store manager finally called the police.
“After that, other people started appearing and asking, ‘Why are you watching the boys? Mckniff told the newspaper.
According to a release from the Portland Police Station (PPB), authorities went to the grocery store because employees there “felt the situation escalated and feared there might be a physical confrontation.”
“The position of the store’s employees was that the food was spoiled and had to be removed due to lack of refrigeration,” PPB added. “The food was not suitable for consumption or donation. The officers also tried to explain this to the group of people. ”
According to the PPB, the crowd finally left to return after the police left. Police have decided not to return to the scene, unless there is “an imminent threat to life or the threat of serious injury.”
“The people who were there were not there for selfish reasons – they were there to receive food to distribute to the hungry people of the city,” said Juniper Simonis, an activist and researcher who went to document the removal. “There are mutual aid groups that have helped feed the people in the heating centers, because the city does not have enough resources to feed them.”
Winter storms have covered large areas of the United States, causing widespread power outages in states such as Texas. The Federal Emergency Management Agency intends to send generators and diesel to the state to help supply electricity.
As reported by Oregonian, more than 300,000 customers in the Portland area lost electricity over the weekend due to snow and ice falling over the city. The Oregon government Kate Brown
Kate BrownOregon to begin vaccinating inmates against COVID-19 on Judge Overnight Health Care’s order: Biden unveils vaccination plan with a focus on mass vaccinations | Coronavirus deaths worldwide exceed 2 million | CDC: The new variant could be the dominant US strain in March Governors say no more doses of vaccine will come, despite Trump’s administration promising MORE (D) declared a state of emergency on Saturday.