PORTLAND, Oregon. A week after federal officials in Portland, Oregon, brutally beat a Navy veteran who said he had approached them simply to ask them a question, a group of military veterans joined the front lines of the troops on Friday. growing protests in the city.
Duston Obermeyer, a veteran of the Marine Corps, said he and other veterans were there to ensure that federal officials did not infringe on the protesters’ freedom of expression, which numbered thousands.
“Our veterans are here specifically to support protesters’ rights to protest,” said Obermeyer, who said he had been deployed three times over a decade in the Navy.
The group of veterinarians lined up in front of a fence erected outside federal court. They stayed together until a cloud of tear gas dispersed much of the crowd.
While President Trump and the Department of Homeland Security have repeatedly branded protesters in Portland as “violent anarchists,” protesters have banded together. A “Wall of Moms” has grown to include hundreds of women in yellow shirts that link arms. A “Dads Wall” in orange shirts has included some with leaf blowers used to keep tear gas away from the crowds. Many nurses showed up on Saturday in blue uniforms.
Local authorities have demanded that federal agents leave the city, saying that their presence has increased tensions and that their tactics have been outrageous. One such case was that of Christopher J. David, a Navy veteran who said he went to the protests for the first time last weekend to ask officers if they felt his actions violated the Constitution.
While standing in front of the officers, one began to hit him with a stick. Mr. David said the attack broke his fingers.
Mr. Obermeyer cited that case as one of the motivations of the “Veterinary Wall”.
Another veteran, Clint Hall, said he came out to support the Black Lives Matter movement. Holding a “4 BLM Disabled Veterans” sign, the Army veteran said the federal presence in the city had simply increased tension.
“Things were getting better, and then they came here and made it worse,” said Hall. “Enough is enough.”
After suffering through tear gas that was fired into the crowd, Mr. Hall said the tear gas was so strong that it left burns on his skin. He said he felt worse than the tear gas he remembered from his time in the military.
“The feds’ response is overblown,” he said.
