Trying to add a payment method? You can do this on the 
QuickTake
Organizers and police in Eugene say they’re prepared for a Saturday demonstration and march downtown that could draw thousands of protesters.
Eugene Police Chief Chris Skinner said police are “prepared for a much bigger event” downtown Saturday than a midweek rally in which roughly 1,000 people peacefully chanted, held signs and marched in opposition to federal immigration enforcement activity.
Event organizers 50501 Eugene planned Saturday’s No Kings demonstration well before street protests in Los Angeles began to turn violent between some protesters and police. Street protests swelled elsewhere across the United States — with a few reports of violence — as President Donald Trump ordered the deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles.
“What my hope is for this community is that they find a way to be able to be heard during that march without feeling like they need to replicate what they’re seeing across the country,” Skinner told the city’s police commission, a citizen advisory group, Thursday evening.
50501 Eugene spokesman Boris Wiedenfeld-Needham described intensive planning for the event.
“Our organizing team has been working every day for well over a month, with numerous committees working on different issues,” Wiedenfeld-Needham said in an email.
The group is “100% committed” to nonviolence,” Widenfeld-Needham said.
“At the march, we will have several de-escalation teams who have all had extensive training, our own medics, multiple police liaison teams, four legal observers” and a press liaison, with Wiedenfeld-Needham estimating that “a minimum 2,000 and probably not more than 5,000” will attend.
Skinner said he’s “really encouraged by how much engagement we’ve had” with 50501, a local chapter of what’s called the 50501 Movement. The group opposes what it calls “the authoritarian actions of the Trump Administration,” and specifically has called out a lack of due process in immigration enforcement activity.
Wiedenfeld-Needham said that during an initial meeting with Eugene police, 50501 agreed to stay out of the Saturday Market.
“We love Saturday Market and have great respect for the institution and individual vendors,” Wiedenfeld-Needham said.
Skinner said police will be on hand to “create as much of a sterile and safe corridor for people marching.”
The event begins at 11 a.m. Saturday with a rally led by the Activist Coalition of Eugene Springfield at the federal courthouse downtown, at 405 E. Eighth Ave., followed at noon by a roughly 1.5-mile march at noon to Eugene City Hall on East Fourth Avenue.
The Wednesday demonstration led to only one citation in lieu of arrest for someone “climbing up the side” of the Lane County Courthouse, Skinner said.
Skinner called Wednesday’s event “a successful protest,” though at one point police and a small group of people “waiting for us to come and engage with them” resulted in “a little bit of a staring contest.”
“The moral of that story is, is that we’re not going to do anything to escalate a situation that is, quite honestly, just a mere inconvenience for a short period of time,” Skinner said.