
4

"While Mayor Ted Wheeler was dining on the patio at Cafe Nell, a New American restaurant in Nob Hill, cellphone footage released on Twitter shows a small group of protesters approaching and taunting him; one individual, whose face does not appear on screen, seemed to take the lead, repeatedly cursing and addressing him by his middle name Tevis while accusing him of failing at his mayoral work and criticizing the city's sweeps of tent encampments — at one point saying, 'I think you need to do your job as a fucking mayor. I think you’re a disgrace,' and 'How dare you do sweeps when people are still on the streets.' Multiple short videos, including one about a minute long, show a heated interaction in which Wheeler is mostly quiet and films on his own phone; the protesters were eventually escorted out of the patio tent. Oregon Public Broadcasting reported the situation allegedly escalated to someone punching the mayor in the shoulder, though that alleged assault was not captured on the shared social media video. The incident followed a separate Jan. 2 confrontation while Wheeler dined in a patio tent elsewhere, and coverage links the confrontations to broader grievances over sweeps of houseless camps and the Portland police's past use of tear gas and rubber bullets; Cafe Nell has not responded to requests for comment." - Alex Frane