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The cult concert held at Tom McCall Waterfront Park on August 8, which eventually escalated into nighttime violence between protesters from left and right, did not get a permit from the city.
This is according to the two offices that would be responsible for approving these permits, Portland Parks & Recreation and the Portland Bureau of Transportation. “This size and scale of the event would indeed have required the approval of a permit,” Parks spokesman Mark Ross told WW. “They never applied for a permit.”
The concert was led by evangelical Christian singer Sean Feucht, who hosted a similar, unmasked concert last year during the pandemic – also banned, according to city officials.
The event also did not get a permit last year: “No permit was applied for or issued for last year’s event,” Ross said, adding that “You might want to question the police about their protocols regarding large groups of people in public. Portland Parks & Recreation does not remove people from public spaces. “
Portland Police Department spokesman Lt. Greg Pashley said the office “may have the power to enforce unauthorized events” but that “I am not aware that the police station has ever do that”.
Pashley said resources were not available due to a homicide in the South East and a robbery in the Old Town: “There were no resources to sort out a lot of other things during a period of several hours, including whether or not an event had been authorized. “
When asked if the police office would impose a sanction on the event’s organizers, Pashley replied, “I don’t know.”
For hours on Sunday, hundreds of people – mostly white, many of them young – swayed, cried, prayed and laughed as Feucht sang songs of praise while strumming his guitar.
Some of the men who volunteered as security guards for Sunday’s concert then roamed the downtown streets, engaging in a mass, fireworks, and pepperball battle with enemies from the left. .
After much of the clash died down, a member of the right-wing group took to the streets with what police later said was an airsoft rifle. The man pointed him at two different people following him, one of them WW correspondent Justin Yau.
On Sunday evening, Feucht shared a photo of himself and around 35 men, some in bulletproof vests and others in civilian clothes, on August 8 and wrote: “THANKS to our security team (halfway through pictured) tonight in Portland They are all ex-military, ex-police, private security and most of all LOVERS OF JESUS ​​and freedom. If you play with them or with our 1st Amendment, the right to worship God, you will meet Jesus in one way or another.
Six-minute video produced by Feucht’s team from the Portland event shows hundreds of people crying, tilting their heads, lifting their faces to the sky, holding each other as tears roll down their faces and singing songs of worship. The video, which includes drone shots, is accompanied by upbeat, upbeat music.
People kneel on the ground, shaking and sobbing. A speaker at the event boasts that more than 40 people have volunteered as security guards for the event as he shouts into the microphone: “Tonight I want you to know that fear is around. this place. But can I tell you something, Portland? Not only do we have over 40 security guards, not only do we have these other amazing people who have come to protect us, but the angels of the Lord surround us.
A young white man wearing a bucket hat tells the camera about two minutes after the video began, “I had a compressed disk on my back and they prayed for me. It’s taken a few times, but God is good, and he’s faithful, and he healed me.
Twice in the well-edited video, Tusitala “Tiny” Toese, a known proud boy, was shown at the event. One shot shows Toese in a body vest, throwing up his hands in a cheer, slightly away from the crowd.
Feucht did not answer WW’s questions about getting a permit, how he connected with security guards, and whether he knew Toese was a proud boy.
In social media posts after the event, Feucht berated a group of leftist agitators he identified as Antifa for trying to disrupt a much smaller prayer event the day before his, which was also being held. at Waterfront Park.
In the video of this confrontation, people dressed in black clash with the few people present at the event and knock over music equipment.
Feucht wrote in a Twitter message Monday morning: “Antifa members showed up in Portland last night to threaten, harass, intimidate and intimidate us. A mother and her baby received tear gas. Antifa stood 10 feet from me as we raised our voices in praise, but we didn’t back down. We continued to worship and God moved mighty!
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