Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler is demanding that President Trump withdraw federal agents deployed to the city amid criticism of a harsh response against protesters and journalists and reports that militarized police personnel have refused to identify.
“Keep your troops in your own buildings, or have them leave our city,” Wheeler said at a press conference on Friday. “This is part of the Trump White House’s core media strategy: use federal troops to bolster its downed poll data. And it is an outright abuse of federal law enforcement officials.”
His comments came the same day that the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the US Marshals Service for allegedly violating the rights of journalists and legal observers. The lawsuit adds federal agencies to an existing complaint to stop crowd control measures and the use of tear gas, rubber bullets against the media and legal observers during the protests.
Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell said officers are in contact with federal agents, but that neither controls what the other does.
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In this photo provided by Doug Brown, officers from different components of the Department of Homeland Security were deployed to protect a federal court in Portland, Oregon, on Sunday, July 5, 2020. Protesters who have clashed with authorities in Portland are not They face only the city police, but a contingent of federal agents reflecting a new priority for the Department of Homeland Security: avoiding what President Donald Trump calls “violent chaos.” Agents dressed in military-style uniforms include members of an elite Border Patrol tactical unit, and their deployment to protect federal buildings and monuments is a departure for an agency created to focus on threats from abroad. (Doug Brown via AP)
“We communicate with federal officials for the purpose of raising awareness and mistrust,” Lovell said. “We are operating very, very close to each other … so it is important for us to know if they are going to take some kind of action and it is important for them to know if we are going to take any kind of action.”
Federal officials have detained 13 people for crimes related to the ongoing protests, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported Thursday. A video showed two people in hard hats and green camouflage with “police” patches grabbing a person on the sidewalk, handcuffing him, and taking him to an unmarked vehicle.
“Who are you?” someone asks the couple, they do not answer. At least some of the federal officers belong to the Department of Homeland Security.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office said in a statement that its agents had information indicating that the person in the video was suspected of assaulting federal agents or destroying federal property.
Once CBP officers approached the suspect, a large and violent crowd moved toward his location. For everyone’s safety, CBP officers quickly moved the suspect to a safer location, “the agency said. However, the video does not show mafia.
Another protester said the men in green military uniforms and generic “police” patches jumped out of an unmarked minivan early Wednesday morning and arrested him on the way home from what he called a peaceful protest. He told The Washington Post that he was scared because he didn’t know who stopped him.
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“Authoritarian governments, not democratic republics, send unmarked authorities after protesters,” Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Ore, said on Twitter, along with a video of a protester arrested and put in an unmarked van. “These Trump / Barr tactics designed to remove any responsibility are absolutely unacceptable in the United States and must end.”
Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, accused Trump of using the power of the federal government to distract the public from the resurgence of the coronavirus in the United States.
Morgan Phillips and The Associated Press of Fox News contributed to this report.
