A waterfront Christian prayer event held in Portland on Saturday was viciously attacked by black-clad hooligans self-identifying as Antifa. Approximately 50 people showed up at the event that was held at an open-air event planned at Tom McCall Waterfront Park near the Battleship Oregon Memorial hosted by Artur Pawlowski, a Polish-Canadian Protestant street preacher. 

Videos posted on social media showed dozens of Antifa members carrying black umbrellas and shields, spraying red and yellow gas at the group of worshippers. Other Antifa members steal sound equipment, lawn chairs and wagons left across the lawn by families. Antifa members began throwing projectiles, including eggs and smoke bombs. There were reports of flash bombs being thrown into a group of children.

“Antifa just rolled in like an angry mob, started throwing flash bombs at everybody, macing everybody … rotten eggs,” one witness said. “They threw a flash bomb into a group of kids that were out there from four months old to like 10.”

.“Where is your god now?” an Antifa member can be heard saying in the video.

A man who was part of the prayer event said a pastor had walked up to ask the group of demonstrators to stop but he was pepper-sprayed. In one video, a woman is seen attending the pastor whose eyes were covered by an orange substance. 

A woman attendee of the family Christian prayer event at the waterfront in downtown Portland describes what happened when antifa attacked them. pic.twitter.com/OtbHVftDor

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) August 8, 2021

No arrests were made despite the overt violence. 

“Police had no interaction with either group today,” Portland Police Bureau spokesman Derek Carmon said to the media.

“Antifa had threatened to beat people up and do what they do — and then they showed up and did it,” an attendee told the Portland Tribune. “The police were not even far from there and they were laughing in their vehicles and doing their thing. It’s probably hard to care as an officer in a place where they take away all your funding.”

Screenshots shared by independent journalist Andy Ngo showed that another Antifa-affiliated Twitter account later tweeted that members threw the sound equipment into the Willamette River and stole sandwiches and water bottles belonging to the Christian group

Antifa reportedly instigated an additional confrontation nearby but encountered resistance in the form of return-fire from paintball guns.

Antifa has been involved in violent attacks since last year with very little effort by the Police to bring the situation under control.