I think Mayor Wheeler taking up the challenge by local media to meet the protesters did the right thing.

I hope he understands their resolve to end abusive police practices and police brutality. Portland and every city across the country for that matter need to outlaw tear gas. Protesting is a legitimate way to bring attention to direly important issues.

July 23, 2020
By Anna Griffin, Dirk VanderHart and Rebecca Ellisa

Mayor Ted Wheeler moves through a crowd of people at a protest in Portland, Ore., July 22, 2020. People have protested police brutality and systemic racism for nearly two months straight and have called on the mayor to resign.

...Many of his remarks, (click here) delivered in the same stiff cadence he uses at City Council meetings, were drowned out by boos and insults. As Wheeler answered questions from protest leaders, someone dumped munitions used by police against the crowds at his feet. A list of demands projected on the wall above his head as he spoke concluded with a call for him to resign.

Wheeler showed no inclination to do that, and he provoked more boos each time he told questioners that he does not plan to hand over day-to-day oversight of the Portland Police Bureau to Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty as she has demanded.

Wheeler said repeatedly that he’d ventured downtown to listen, and he did plenty of that....