Watch Now: Sergio Olmos

A crowd surges to the glass doors of the Multnomah County Justice Center and pauses—then someone begins smashing the glass. Looters laugh in Pioneer Place as they realize they've made it to the racks of Louis Vuitton. Police officers chuck tear gas at protesters from the back of a moving truck, then speed away.

Sergio Olmos was there. Because of him, thousands of people across Oregon felt like they were, too.

Olmos is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in Underscore, Crosscut, WW and the Portland Tribune. He's covered Portland's street protests and brawls for years.

So when protests of the police killing of George Floyd emerged in Portland last week, Olmos was ready, equipped with video equipment and a honed instinct for where conflict would ensue. Here's what he shot June 2:

For five consecutive nights, he's been at the front lines where police and protesters face off. If he's lucky, he gets four hours of sleep a night.

He talks to WW news editor Aaron Mesh about what the mood is like in a group of people looting a store, why it's hard to tell what police officers are thinking, and the hardest part of being a freelancer covering riots.

Jason Rouse | Actor
“It was like being under surveillance in my apartment for five hours.”
Muriel Lucas | Church of Film Curator
Each movie is full of strange, striking images and strays far from Hollywood's readymade narrative structures and tidy resolutions—and none of them are on major streaming services.
Jeff Anderson | Union Organizer
His ranks are growing during the pandemic.
KayelaJ | Musician
“Y’all backwards, scavengers/Buying up all the tissue going batshit/Diarrhea ain't even one of the symptoms/Why the fuck you buying that shit?”
Joe McFerrin | President & CEO of Rosemary Anderson High School
They were as precious to him as personal protective equipment was for nurses.
Ron Wyden | U.S. Senator
He was more troubled by the sluggish pace at which the Oregon Employment Department is delivering federal benefits to jobless citizens.
Carrie Brownstein | Musician & Actress
What does a creative polymath do when stuck with a bunch of extra time on her hands? Pick up on old habits—namely, observing Portlanders in their natural habitat.
Andrew Hoan | Portland Business Alliance CEO
In this interview, Andrew Hoan talks about Portland’s economic future, why his organization supported a tax hike, and how Portland is not Brooklyn.
Josh Lehner | Economist
Josh Lehner's forecast went out 10 years, predicting there would be 34,000 fewer Oregonians because of the economic upheaval caused by the pandemic.
Andy Baio |XOXO Festival Founder
In mid-March, it was hard to imagine the coronavirus could disrupt an event six months down the line. But Baio couldn’t afford to wait and see.
John Horvick | Pollster
He underestimated the appeal of Mingus Mapps, the political newcomer who sped past former Mayor Sam Adams to make a runoff against Commissioner Chloe Eudaly.
Anna Johnson| Senior Economic Analyst
She authored an historically bleak jobs report.
Lance Bangs| Cinematographer
You know a crisis is getting serious when guys who’ve gone bungee-jumping while locked inside overflowing Porta-Potties start worrying about their health.
Dr. Steve Kassakian| OHSU
The technology and tools to diagnose and monitor clinical health remotely have been around for some time. What’s been missing are a couple of things.
Emily Menges| Portland Thorns Defender
She also found a wall where she can practice her shot.
Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer | Oregon State Rep
It was a bombshell in the typically go-along, get-along world of party politics in Oregon.
David and Christine Vernier| Co-Founders of Vernier Software and Technology
“I think back and say, ‘Why did we not do something?’—for one thing, sell all our stock,” David Vernier jokes.
Elle Stanger| Portland Sex Worker
Stanger has no problem telling her 8-year-old daughter what she does for a living: "When she was little, I would drive by the strip club and say, 'This is the building where mommy dances for money.'"
Don Moore| Director of Oregon Zoo
When the pandemic shut the zoo down in mid-March, it didn’t just close a Portland institution—it shuttered Oregon’s biggest paid tourist attraction.
Dan Halsted| Portland Dining Impresario
“That’s just going to be the death knell for sit-down restaurants,” Huffman says.
Julia Niiro| Founder of MilkRun
Julia Niiro is on a mission to save family farms.
Dan Halsted| Head Programmer at Hollywood Theatre
"Everyone’s just gotten a slap of reality. Our overprivileged society is suddenly, vastly going to change. I think our art is going to reflect that.”
Kate Sokoloff | Founder of Live Wire
Kate Sokoloff knows she has it good, while others have it very bad.
McKenna Dempsey | CEO and Co-Founder of Kamber
Most of her life, McKenna Dempsey has battled depression, anxiety and severe mood instability. A single conversation changed her understanding of herself—and she wants to use tech to impart that idea to teenagers.
Peter Graven| Data Scientist
Peter Graven built a model to see what would happen if the state took no social distancing precautions.
John Tapogna| Economist’s
His analysis flies in the face of high-profile protests demanding a quick return to normal.
Curtis Cook | Comedian
His biggest mistake of quarantine, though? Joining TikTok.
Katherine McGuiness | Hotline Lead
“I can’t think of what can be more essential and timely than accessing an abortion.”
Dr. Laurel Berge | Emergency Room Physician
Berge co-founded Help Make [Better] 50, a nonprofit dedicated to producing medical isolation gowns—a significantly more involved process than facial coverings.
Jake Silberman| Comic
Jake Silberman quit his job to go on a comedy tour. Joke’s on him.
Marchelle Watson | Portlander
“I struggled to walk from my bathroom to my kitchen, and that is probably 15 feet,” says Marchelle Watson.
Andrew Barton | Preschool Teacher
Of course, we couldn’t interview him and not have him read us a story.
Curtis Robinhold | Executive Director, Port of Portland
“I’m not sure I want to give blood to get on an airplane.”
Bill Walton | Sportscaster
And who’s that calling in as a special guest halfway though? Why, it’s Brian Grant!
Bill Oakley | Fast-Food Critic
One area of his life that the coronavirus has disrupted, though, is his burgeoning side gig as a fast food critic.
Rick Turoczy | Co-Founder & GM, Portland Incubator Experiment
As the godfather of Portland’s startup scene, Rick Turoczy says many of the companies at his incubator are still figuring out what COVID-19 means for them.
Leather Storrs | Co-Host, Netflix's "Cooked With Cannabis"
The point isn’t to watch famous guests like Michael Rapaport and Ricki Lake get stoned out of their gourds—not the whole point, anyway.
Samantha Gladu | Executive Director, Next Up
When you toss your ballot in the mailbox next month without hunting for a postage stamp, thank Samantha Gladu.
Andrew Proctor | Director, Literary Arts
The way Andrew Proctor sees it, the nonprofit has a significant role to play in a post-pandemic arts landscape.
Tim Duy | Economist, University of Oregon
Tim Duy doesn’t see any scenario in which the effects of COVID-19 aren’t worse than the Great Recession.
Storm Large | Singer & Actress
The Portland singer and actress has spent the better part of the past two decades away from home. Now that she's forced to stay away from the stage, she’s confronting some harsh truths about herself.
Shain Brenden | Comedian
In Kandahar, he remembers hiding next to a concrete wall in the middle of the night, waiting for enemy rockets to land and kill everyone. That’s where his comedy was born.
Dan Weber | Comedian
“In the Bible, Yahweh didn’t deal in just a couple thousand people dying,” Weber says. “He would light 50,000 people on fire.”
Gretchen Leigh | Education Coordinator, SheBop
It’s an awkward time to make a living talking about sex when physical contact is practically against the law. But for that reason, Gretchen Leigh’s job could be considered essential.
Rukaiyah Adams | Chief Investment Officer, Meyer Memorial Trust
In the short term? It doesn’t look great. But eventually, she says, Oregonians could benefit from upheaval.
Monahad Elshieky | Comedian & Writer, Samantha Bee
The formerly Portland-based comic is spending quarantine watching “Law & Order,” doing standup for his cats and writing jokes about the coronavirus for Samantha Bee.
Emily Suvada | Author
Suvada wrote the first Mortal Coil book in 2017, when few people outside of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention knew what a coronavirus was.
Dr. Dana Anthony Yip | Pediatric Dentist
Quarantine gave him time to ponder what common household items could be converted into facial protection without any cutting or sewing.
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