Fires and Pepper Spray in Seattle as Police Protests Widen Across U.S.

Mr. McClain’s death was one of several that have occurred in police custody around the country that received fresh attention following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. Mr. Floyd’s death ignited mass protests that drew millions to the streets in dozens of cities, but the demonstrations waned in most places.

Seattle and Portland, however, have seen extended demonstrations. Seattle protesters at one point laid claim to several blocks of the Capitol Hill neighborhood and declared an autonomous zone. After a series of shootings there led the police to clear the area, protests had subsided.

Protests in Portland, meanwhile, have continued, with some of the heaviest demonstrations around federal buildings in the city. On Saturday, crowds marched from near the federal courthouse to a hotel several blocks away where federal agents who had been dispatched to the city were thought to be staying.

“Get out of bed with the feds,” the protesters chanted.

Craig Gabriel, an assistant U.S. attorney in Oregon, said at a news conference on Saturday that federal agents had arrested 60 people at protests in Portland and were pursuing charges against 46 of them.

Several federal agents had been injured by fireworks and lasers that protesters shone into their eyes, he said. Still, Mr. Gabriel said the protests had largely been peaceful and he acknowledged the protesters’ concerns about police abuse.

Harry Fones, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, whose agents are among those clashing with protesters, said on Saturday that the demonstrators were little more than “violent anarchists rioting on the streets.”

Protesters in Washington, D.C. planned to hold a demonstration on Sunday at the Virginia home of Chad Wolf, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in response to the deployment of federal agents in Portland.