Contextual Insurgency: Lessons From a Week Observing Portland Black Bloc
BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 4 months ago
CFSP.
By this point the scouting line often detected the flanking lines of riot police and a riot was formally been declared. Blocs armed with shields deployed defensively to allow time for the rest of the rioters to disengage. These “shield walls” provided a tempting target for a police “bull rush”, video of which can then be used for propaganda purposes. Behind the shield wall other bloc members threw commercial fireworks, frozen water bottles, and paint-filled balloons. The paint balloons are often mixed with sand or abrasive material that scratches clear shields and visors when cleaning is attempted damaging expensive riot suppression equipment. Meanwhile the main element of the antifa black bloc continued to retreat into bordering residential areas.
Antifa chooses the residential areas for specific reasons. As the police deploy flashbangs, tear gas, and assorted non-lethal munitions in order to control the ongoing riot, the disruptive effects are experienced by the local residents. Additionally, as the action moved further into the poorly-lit neighborhoods, small groups of rioters and black bloc would break off to either escape, or engage in vandalism against the original PPB target (if left unguarded) or other nearby targets of opportunity.
In other words, you home, with your family inside.
I judge the actions of the residents in this neighborhood to be unwise. As Antifa/BLM continues to encroach into neighborhoods, endangering the lives of residents with their actions, I expect there to be an increased occurrence of this sort of thing.
But I don’t expect it will all be out in the open. There will be an increased occurrence of shooters in cover and concealment, under Ghillie suits, and so forth, looking for their own “targets of opportunity.”
I expect the coming months to be increasingly dangerous for rioters as they encroach into residential areas.
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