[1] Several hundred participants gathered, along with a larger group of counter-protesters who organized the Portland Stands United Against Hate Rally outside City Hall.

The Trump Free Speech Rally was held one week after the May 26 train attack, when a man fatally stabbed two people and injured a third after he was confronted for shouting what were described as racist and anti-Muslim slurs at two teenage girls on a MAX Light Rail.

[4] Mayor Ted Wheeler and families of the victims asked organizers to cancel the Trump Free Speech Rally, which was scheduled prior to the attack and they said might have potential to "exacerbate an already difficult situation".

[2][4] These demonstrators reportedly threw balloons filled with an "unknown, foul-smelling liquid", bricks, and rocks at officers, who responded by firing "impact weapons and chemical munitions" (pepper-spray projectiles and stun grenades)[1][2] to disperse the crowd.

[4] Fourteen of the activists at Chapman Square were arrested, and officers confiscated a variety of weapons, including brass knuckles, bricks, clubs, a hunting knife, homemade shields, a slingshot, sticks, and roadside flares.

[5][6] Conservative commentators and bloggers lambasted the mayor with words like "blatant hypocrisy",[7] "obviously pretextual",[8] "[Portland's] reputation as one of America's most enlightened cities is undeserved",[9] and "because...Trump".

[10] The International Socialist Organization wrote that "Calls from politicians to put limitations on speech, like the attempt made by Portland mayor Ted Wheeler to get the federal government to revoke the alt-right's permit for the June 4 rally, only serve to further embolden the right and plant the seeds for future crackdowns on the left".