Authorities in Oregon arrested 10 protesters who were part of a large crowd supporting abortion rights after the demonstration turned violent.
Police in the city of Eugene, a city about an hour and a half away from Portland, said in a news release that protesters clashed with officers and threw smoke bombs during the demonstration at a pregnancy center on Friday night.
Nine people were charged with disorderly conduct including one person who was additionally charged with escape in the third degree and resisting arrest. One person was charged with harassment.
Officials said a large crowd gathered at the Dove Medical Center around 9:21 p.m. on Friday night as part of the “Night of Rage” protests against the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, which had enshrined abortion as a constitutional right, earlier in the day.
Protesters arrived wearing black clothing as well as masks and hoods, according to the Eugene Police Department. The crowd grew to 75 people and some protesters eventually began picking up rocks and putting on gas masks, officials added.
Police reportedly tried to disperse the crowd after protesters began hurling smoke bombs and filled water bottles at officers.
Officials said officers began making arrests but members of the crowd resisted, some of them violently. Officers began shooting inert pepperballs at the feet of the protesters, the department added, which eventually broke up the demonstration.
Several protests swept the nation after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority voted 5-4 on Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade, allowing individual states to ban or limit abortions.
In Arizona, thousands of protesters converged on the state capitol building on Friday night, forcing some lawmakers to huddle in the basement, according to The Associated Press.
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