Authorities in Portland, Oregon, clashed with residents trying to salvage discarded groceries from a garbage container Tuesday after power outages occurred throughout the city due to winter storms.
A dozen Portland police officers confronted a group of people at a local Fred Meyer, according to The Oregonian.
According to the newspaper, people started gathering around the container around 2:30 pm and within a few hours, police officers came to guard the containers.
Morgan Mckniff, an outspoken Portland police activist and critic, told The Oregonian that employees had been monitoring garbage containers before police arrived. According to Mckniff, about 15 people gathered at the store to pick up discarded groceries. The store manager finally called the police.
“After that, other people started showing up and asked,‘ Why are you watching a container? Mckniff told the newspaper.
According to one release of the Portland Police Office (PPB), authorities went to the grocery store because employees “felt the situation was escalating and feared a physical confrontation could occur.”
“The position of the store employees was that the food was broken and that it needed to be removed for lack of refrigeration,” the PPB added. “The food was not suitable for consumption or donation. The agents also tried to explain it to the group of people.
According to PPB, the crowd finally left, to return after the departure of the police. Police decided not to return to the scene unless there was “an imminent threat to life or threat of serious injury.”
“The people who were there were not there for selfish reasons; they were there to get food to distribute to the hungry people around the city,” said Juniper Simonis, an activist and researcher who went to document the waste. “There are mutual aid groups that have been helping to feed people in heating centers, because the city doesn’t have enough resources to feed them.”
Winter storms have covered large strips of the United States, causing widespread power outages in states like Texas. The Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to send generators and diesel to the state to help supply energy.
According to The Oregonian, more than 300,000 customers in the Portland area lost electricity over the weekend due to snow and ice falling on the city. Governor of Oregon Kate Brown
Kate BrownOregon will begin vaccinating inmates against COVID-19 following a judge’s order. Overnight healthcare: Biden presents vaccination plan with focus on mass inoculations | Coronavirus deaths worldwide exceed 2 million | CDC: A new variant could be the dominant U.S. strain for March Rulers say no additional doses of vaccine will arrive, though Trump administrator promises MORE (D) declared a state of emergency on Saturday.