Dozens of women with yellow arms joined together to form a protective “mother wall” around Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland, Oregon, Sunday when protesters clashed with federal law enforcement.
The video of the scene showed the crowds chanting “The feds are staying away, the moms are here!” And “The feds are going home!” Before protesters tore down a fence erected around federal court. Federal agents responded with what appeared to be tear gas and explosive explosions. The video showed.
Hundreds of people had gathered for the protests, blocking roads, Portland police said in a statement Monday morning. They said dozens of others “tampered” with the fence of the court.
“The crowd was very happy when the fence fell,” freelance journalist Garrison Davis told NBC News by phone after reporting on the protest. “There was a lot of cheering.”
Once the fence was closed, police said dozens of people wearing shields, helmets, gas masks, umbrellas, bats, and hockey sticks approached the courthouse doors before federal police dispersed the crowd shortly. Before midnight.
Portland police said none of their officers were present, nor did they engage with the crowds or deploy gas.
The Department of Homeland Security could not immediately be reached for comment on the involvement of federal agents in Sunday’s events.
In an earlier statement about Saturday’s protests, the department described the protesters as “violent anarchists” who were “attacking federal agents and damaging federal property.”
Portland has seen sustained protests after the murder of George Floyd, the black man whose death in Minneapolis custody triggered global protests against police brutality and systemic racism.
Tensions have escalated in recent weeks, particularly after a protester was seriously injured when a US Marshals Service officer fired a less lethal round at his head on July 11.
Sunday’s protests began with a demonstration by a group called Moms against police brutality, said Davis, the freelance journalist. Some members of the group, who describe themselves as the Wall of Moms on social media, had also been in protests the night before.
Some of the women were there because their children had been gassed at previous protests in recent weeks, Davis said.
“There are definitely some parents and teens out there together,” he said.
Sunday’s clashes followed comments from the city mayor blaming federal police for “escalating the situation.”
“Your presence here is actually leading to more violence and more vandalism,” Mayor Ted Wheeler said on CNN. “They are not wanted here. We have not asked for them here. In fact, we want them to leave.”
The dispute over the presence of federal agencies will take place in court.
On Friday, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies. She alleged that federal law enforcement officers dispatched to Portland to suppress protests violated the Constitution by illegally detaining and arresting protesters without probable cause.
In the lawsuit, Rosenblum has called for a restraining order to prevent agents with Homeland Security, the US Marshals Service, US Customs and Border Protection and the Federal Protection Service from making more arrests.
President Donald Trump defended his administration in a tweet Sunday saying the government is “trying to help Portland, not hurt it.” He also blamed the local leadership for having “lost control of the anarchists and agitators.”
Caroline Radnofsky, Allan Smith, and Associated Press contributed
