Where Political Protests Are Rocking The United States

Protests are continuing to rock Kenosha, Wisconsin, after the police shooting of Jacob Blake, an unarmed black man. Elsewhere, Portland experienced its 90th consecutive day of protest on Tuesday which led to clashes with the police and numerous arrests with the gathering declared a riot. The Portland protestors have been rallying against anti-black racism and police brutality since the death of George Floyd three months ago with heavy clashes occurring between left and right wing demonstrators in recent days. While many of the city's protests have been peaceful, some have descended into violence, resulting in injuries to police officers and protesters as well as arson, looting and vandalism.

The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, together with the Bridging Divides Initiative at Princeton University, has been monitoring the number of political demonstration events in U.S. states over the past couple of months with just over 5,000 recorded in total. 46.5 percent of those events were connected to the Black Lives Matter movement while 32 of them involved what the researchers call "political violence". That is defined as an event where force is used by a group with a political purpose or motivation to achieve a political end result. The protests in Portland have made Oregon one of the U.S. states with the highest number of political demonstrations since the middle of June.

Between June 14 and August 22, Oregon experienced 204 political demonstration events, the seventh highest in the country. California had 584, the highest number of any U.S. state while New York and Florida had the second and third highest volume with 315 and 256, respectively. The fewest were recorded in Virginia which had just one, followed by South Dakota's 10 and Delaware's 12.