Portland police arrested a man who locked himself to a concrete barrel at a Northwest Portland fuel terminal Friday morning. He was protesting the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement and the export of fossil fuels.
Tim Oscar Norgren, 41, of Stevenson, Washington, a member of Teamsters Local 320, locked himself to the barrel on railroad tracks outside the Arc Logistics Partners’ terminal at 5044 N.W. Front Ave. on Thursday. Police arrived to remove him at around 9:30 a.m.
A spokesman for the Portland Rising Tide said Norgren timed his protest to coincide with President Obama’s visit to Oregon. Portland Rising Tide was formed, according to its website, to “promote community-based solutions to the climate crisis” by direct action.
At the same time as Norgren was being removed by Portland police, more than 50 protesters from groups such as the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign and unions like Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 gathered outside the Nike World Headquarters campus in Washington County, where Obama was speaking. They urged Congress members to refuse Obama’s request for “fast-track” authority to submit the trade pact to lawmakers for an up-or-down vote, with no amendments allowed.
“I’m locked down today in part because climate change is an issue of survival inextricably linked to so-called ‘free trade’ globalization efforts like the TPP,” Norgren said in a news release.
Jonah Majure, a Portland Rising Tide spokesman, said Norgren locked himself to the barrel at 8:30 a.m. Thursday and was removed by police about 24 hours later.
“Five of us camped out with him overnight and another six to eight people came Friday morning,” Majure said. “The police rolled in about 9:30 and began the extraction.”
Majure said Norgren was taken into custody second-degree trespassing charges. Jail records show he was booked into the Justice Center Jail in downtown Portland at 11:11 a.m. Bail was set at $1,000.