An Oregon civil and human rights protester entered a guilty plea last week to lighting and throwing a lit firework at the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon. This was done amid the nationwide protests against racism and police brutality in the summer of 2020. Police say protesters masqueraded as journalists and then set fires or threw fireworks, making it a struggle to figure out who was a real reporter during the pandemonium. Protesters were reacting to the torture and killings of innocent Black men and women at the hands of law enforcement.
The incendiary device, which causes fires, hit protective wood that was covering the courthouse’s entrance, which sparked a fire when the device ignited, federal authorities said. Agard-Berryhill told federal officers that an unknown man handed him what he thought was a spinner-type firework about the size of a piece of chalk that would rotate with varied colors when lit, according to a federal affidavit.
Gabriel Agard-Berryhill appeared before U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut. Agard-Berryhill pleaded guilty to willfully using an incendiary device in an attempt to damage the courthouse on July 28, 2020, causing more than $1,000 in damage. Under a plea deal, his lawyer says he’s expected to be sentenced to time served with two years of supervised release for the felony conviction.
Agard-Berryhill told federal officers that he didn’t mean to hurt anyone by using the firework. Agard-Berryhill is currently residing at the Northwest Regional Re-entry Center. The killing of George Floyd by police sparked riots across the country. A police department building was burned to the ground in the Midwest after a video showing him pleading for his life and urinating on himself while a cop placed his hands in his pocket to apply more pressure to the knee he had on Floyd’s neck.
