In recent days, President Donald Trump has deployed federal police to monitor the protests in Portland, Oregon, with images and videos posted online of unmarked officers in military-style uniforms arresting protesters, something Damian Lillard, Guard of the Trail Blazers, called “disturbing.” “
“I had a personal experience with a protest on a particular day and it was all peaceful,” Lillard said Wednesday. “And all the videos I’ve seen have been peaceful, so I don’t understand why federal troops need to be on the ground and physically take people off the streets. It’s unnecessary and it’s definitely a scary situation, so it’s something that I’ve started looking for more in the last days to learn more. “
Protests in Portland have been going on since late May, with citizens piling up in large numbers daily to demonstrate against police violence and systemic racism.
Being across the country in Orlando, Florida, preparing for the NBA restart, Lillard said he wasn’t aware of the situation in Portland until he jumped on Twitter and saw plenty of mentions asking him about it.
“I was not there [aware]until I saw a clip, “he said,” and when I saw the clip, I saw federal troops on the ground, people who were picked up in unmarked trucks and taken to undisclosed locations, and the like just because they felt they needed to get people on the streets. “
Both Oregon Governor Kate Brown and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler have called for agents from the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Patrol, the Federal Protective Service and the US Marshals Service. Leave the city, accusing them. arresting protesters without probable cause and signaling the presence of federal agents as an escalation of the situation. However, the federal government has said it is trying to restore order in Portland.
“It is definitely painful to see people protesting peacefully about something and they are not wrong to protest,” Lillard said. “And being mistreated and physically taken off the streets and treated as I saw in these video clips, was disturbing.”
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