‘Hands Off’ march video and perspective of a volunteer corker

If you saw my photo gallery from Saturday’s “Hands Off” rally and protest and you want a different perspective on the event, check out this video. It’s short and features scenes of the crowd and the march, and is mostly accompanied by audio and video from the speech by Portland City Councilor Angelita Morillo.

*And I need to remind everyone that being featured in a photo or video on BikePortland doesn’t not equal an endorsement. For some reason, a lot of people assume everything I share is politically-motivated or reflective of my personal beliefs and biases — but that is not necessarily the case! I am here to document what I see and pass it along to the community. Obviously everything is biased on some way because I am a human, but it’s exhausting and unfair that some folks are so eager to jump on everything I post as being a sign that I believe x, y, or z.*

As for the event itself, it was really chill. The crowd I saw was peaceful and seemed very excited to finally be able to express their views about what’s going on in our country. There was a huge turnout of bicycle corkers to help protect participants on the road. I didn’t see any sketchy interactions. In fact, at one point I stood next to a few Portland Police Bureau bike cops on the Morrison Bridge for several minutes. In the short time I was there, probably a dozen marchers walked over to the cops and said “Thank you!”. I think that speaks very broadly to what type of event this was and what type of folks were there.

I don’t know if organizers received a permit or not, but it felt well-organized and orderly from what I saw.

Rob Galanakis was one of the volunteer corkers, and he wrote an email to Portland City Council members sharing his view of the event. That email is below:

Hello Chief Day, Mayor Wilson, and Community and Public Safety Committee Members,

My name is Rob Galanakis. I am a District 3 resident. I am the Glencoe PTA President, Mt Tabor NA Board Member, PYSA coach, Bike Bus PDX organizer, and candidate for PPS board.

I have “corked” (kept marchers safe from motor vehicles) at dozens of marches and bike rides in Portland over the last 4 years, as I did yesterday at the Hands Off protest march. I want to make clear I am/was not a march or corker leader; just a volunteer. And I’m writing you entirely in a personal capacity.

I want to commend PPB for its behavior at the march yesterday, especially the Bike Squad. Police assistance with corking was viewed with skepticism initially, and there was significant antagonism towards police, based on years of hostile or apathetic interactions. However, your Bike Squad was not discouraged, and continued to show a genuine intent to collaborate. I never sensed arrogance or frustration in the dozen or more interactions I had with officers.

The key moment came when PPB adjusted when the marchers’ planned to proceed on the Morrison Bridge to Grand Ave, rather than the Esplanade. This required closing down the I-5 ramp onto Morrison (stranding drivers), and Grand, and Burnside westbound. The police worked to keep everyone safe and the march, which was far, far too large to use the Esplanade, was able to adjust its route without incident.

Corking a dynamic march is different from normal police traffic control. All along the route, officers never interfered with me when I was doing my job. I saw Bike Squad officers take direction from corkers and a TriMet supervisor. There was an aspect of humility and collaboration I did not expect.

There was some sore behavior from non-Bike Squad officers, but for the most part, PPB and the Bike Squad helped pull off a safe event. Trust won’t come after one protest, and there are many other concerns with police behavior including towards the councilors on this email, but I do feel it is worth calling out successes when they happen.

Thank you,
Rob Galanakis