Read on Twitter
Yesterday I was led on a tour of the Red House on Mississippi. Inside his childhood bedroom, William Nietzche pulled a plastic bag from his pocket containing his wedding ring, which was damaged during his arrest that morning. He held it in his palm under the glow of a headlamp.
“It’s devastating. It’s almost like a dream. Like a nightmare,” Nietzche, 35, said, looking around the dimly lit room, which he said was rifled through by law enforcement earlier that day. “I feel like I’ve been fighting since I was a little kid. But we’re still holding on.”
"It's been a David-Goliath-type battle going up against everybody. It's hereditary," Nietzche added. "I'm Indigenous from a tribe called Upper Skagit, so I can see why I'm so connected to the land and trying to preserve what it means."
Nietzche and his mother, Julie Metcalf Kinney, 62, led me to the downstairs bathroom, which they said was the most heavily damaged room that day. Pieces of the broken sink and toilet rested on the floor and inside the bathtub.
Metcalf Kinney walked me into the living room, where VCR tapes and couch cushions were strewn on the floor. “It’s very hard to keep myself from even crying. When my sons were taken, it just completely terrorizes me because they had taken my eldest son for years," she said.
"The camps are going to get bigger and bigger because these are the tactics they're using," Metcalf Kinney added. "My husband has been here since he was four. This has been his family home. He's completely devastated. We've lost so much stuff since they displaced us."
People have been camping by the home since a Multnomah County Judge authorized the eviction in September. Early yesterday, law enforcement clashed with protesters as they attempted to “re-secure” the foreclosed home for the developer who bought it in a 2018 foreclosure auction.
Hundreds of people came to the Red House yesterday, some working together to construct these barricades blocking traffic on North Mississippi Avenue. The house is located in Albina, a historically Black residential neighborhood that has been gentrified.
I spoke with Eric VanGelder, 38, who was walking through the area with his 4-year-old daughter yesterday. They live around the corner from the Red House and wanted to see what was going on.
”Right now I’m just really, really hopeful that people don’t get hurt,” he said. (1/2)
”Right now I’m just really, really hopeful that people don’t get hurt,” he said. (1/2)
“I think there’s probably going to be a lot of pressure to use this street again, so maybe there can be some kind of thoughtful concessions so that the street is peacefully reopened by the people who blocked it, rather than forcibly reopened in a bloody mess.” (2/2)
When I left the area at 9 p.m., people were still reinforcing barricades on N. Mississippi Ave. with wooden boards, planks, and plastic wrap. The air was thick with spray paint fumes as messages were added to the street, like this one reading: "PUNCHING A NAZI IS HOT GIRL SHIT."
While there are some signs around the house reading "RHAZ" ("Red House Autonomous Zone"), the family and organizers have repeatedly stated that the area is not an autonomous zone, but an "eviction blockade."
Here's last night's recap for The @Oregonian: https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2020/12/occupation-outside-north-portland-home-continues-despite-mayors-condemnation-warning.html
Here's last night's recap for The @Oregonian: https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2020/12/occupation-outside-north-portland-home-continues-despite-mayors-condemnation-warning.html
