Portland’s mayor has demanded that Donald Trump withdraw the militarized federal agents deployed in the city after some people detained far from federal property were sent to protect.
“Keep your troops in your own buildings, or have them leave our city,” President Ted Wheeler, the mayor, said at a press conference on Friday.
Democratic Governor Kate Brown said Trump was seeking a confrontation in hopes of earning political points elsewhere, and a distraction from the coronavirus pandemic, which is causing an increasing number of infections in Oregon and across the country.
Brown’s spokesman, Charles Boyle, said arresting people without probable cause was “extremely troubling and a violation of their civil liberties and constitutional rights.”
Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said she would file a lawsuit in federal court against the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Marshals Service, Customs and Border Protection and the Federal Protection Service. , alleging that they have violated Oregonians’ civil rights by detaining them without probable cause. It will also seek a temporary restraining order against them.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Oregon said federal agents appear to be violating people’s rights, which “should concern everyone in the United States.”
“Usually when we see people in unmarked cars forcibly grab someone from the street, we call it kidnapping,” said Jann Carson, acting executive director of the ACLU. “The actions of the militarized federal officers are totally unconstitutional and will not go unanswered.”
Federal officials have charged at least 13 people with crimes related to the protests, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported Thursday. Some have been detained by the federal court, scene of protests. Others were caught a few blocks away.
Protests after the Floyd police murder in Minneapolis have often turned into violent clashes between smaller groups and the police. Tensions have escalated since a US Marshals Service officer fired a less deadly round at the head of a protester, seriously injuring him.
“This is part of the Trump White House’s core media strategy: use federal troops to bolster its downed poll data,” Wheeler said. “And it is an absolute abuse of federal law enforcement officials.”
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 officials belong to DHS.
Customs and Border Protection 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.
In another case, Mark Pettibone, 29, said a minivan approached him around 2 a.m. Wednesday and four or five people left “as if they were deployed in a Middle East war.”
Pettibone told the Associated Press that he fell to his knees when the group approached. They dragged him into the truck without identifying himself or answering his questions and covered his eyes with his hat so he couldn’t see, he said.
“I thought it was going to disappear indefinitely,” Pettibone said, adding that they put him in a cell and that the officers dumped the contents of his backpack, with a comment: “Oh, this is a lot of nothing.”
After he asked for a lawyer, Pettibone was allowed to leave.
“Authoritarian governments, not democratic republics, send unmarked authorities after protesters,” US Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley said in a tweet.
U.S. attorney Billy Williams in Portland said Friday that he asked the Department of Homeland Security inspector general’s office to investigate the actions of DHS staff.
In a letter, the two Oregon senators and two of their members of the House of Representatives demanded that US Attorney General William Barr and Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf immediately withdraw “these forces federal paramilitaries in our state. “
Members of Congress said they would ask the DHS inspector general and the United States Department of Justice to investigate.
“It is painfully clear that this administration focuses exclusively on escalating violence without responding to my repeated requests why this expeditionary force is in Portland and under what constitutional authority,” said Senator Ron Wyden.
On Thursday night, federal officials deployed tear gas and fired non-lethal shots at a crowd of protesters. Wolf visited Portland on Thursday and called the protesters, who are protesting racism and police brutality, “violent anarchists.”
He blamed state and municipal authorities for not ending the protests. But Portland police said Friday that they ended up arresting 20 people overnight.
At least two protests occurred Thursday night, one near the federal court and the other at a police station in another part of the city. Police told protesters to leave the site after announcing that they heard chants about the burning of the building. Protester Paul Frazier said the singing was “much more rhetorical than an actual statement.”
Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell told reporters that his officers are in contact with federal agents, but that none control the actions of others.
“We communicate with federal officials for the purpose of raising awareness and mistrust,” Lovell said. “We are operating very, very close to each other.”
