PORTLAND, Ore., Nov. 12 (UPI) — An anti-Donald Trump protest turned violent when a protester was shot early Saturday, though police in Portland, Ore., said the motive remains unclear.
Investigators said the male victim was marching as part of a group over the Morrison Bridge when he was approached by the assailant who was in a vehicle. The suspect opened fire and the victim sustained non-life threatening injuries. No one else in the crowd was hit.
Police described the shooter as a thin black male in his late teens, who fled the scene in a gray or silver sedan. The incident remains under investigation.
Portland has seen anti-Trump protests turn violent in the wake of the election. Police in riot gear used tear gas and flash grenades to disperse a crowd that became unruly, smashing windows, throwing burning projectiles and spray-painting graffiti. ABC News reported two individuals were arrested Friday, the third night of protests.
Officials estimated the protests have caused more than $1 million in damages so far across the city.
Though Portland has been among the cities hit hardest by protests in the wake of the election, it is far from alone.
At the University of Oklahoma, a student was suspended after targeting black freshmen at the University of Pennsylvania with racial slurs and threats of lynching via the text messaging app GroupMe. A group of 161 individuals was created on the app, including dozens of black freshmen at Penn and the perpetrators in Oklahoma. The suspects sent images of old lynchings and, using the schedule function, scheduled a “daily lynching” of a black person. The Penn students were addressed using racial epithets.
Another student at Oklahoma State University also has been identified as one of the originators of the group, though that school has not made a statement about the incident.
Though University of Oklahoma officials announced one student had been temporarily suspended, why students at a school half-way across the country were targeted remains unclear, though Penn is Trump’s alma mater. The fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon was also mentioned in the text messages, a potential link between the campuses.
Both schools are cooperating and the FBI is investigating the threats.
In a statement, University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann called the messages “totally repugnant” and “thoroughly disgusting.”
