Unmarked federal agents are arresting Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland, Oregon, at Trump’s urging.
Oregon’s governor doesn’t want them. Oregon’s senators don’t want them. Portland’s mayor and city commissioners don’t want them. And Portland’s residents don’t want them.
And yet, at the urging of President Donald Trump, federal officers are roaming the streets of Oregon’s biggest city in unmarked vehicles, detaining protesters without identifying themselves.
Multiplereports and videos clearly show heavily armed federal law enforcement officers dressed in camouflage stepping out of unmarked civilian vans and forcibly detaining anti-racism and anti-police brutality demonstrators on the streets of Portland, often far away from any federal property (where federal officials have jurisdiction). In many instances, those taken into custody hadn’t clearly violated any laws.
After several days of fear and confusion as reports of these mysterious activities piled up, the Trump administration acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security sent officers from Border Patrol and other agencies to Portland last week to protect federal property, namely a federal courthouse in the heart of the city, which has been tagged by graffiti and had a small fire and broken windows.
Trump administration officials, especially acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, have defended the aggressive tactics. They’ve portrayed the largely peaceful George Floyd-inspired protests in the city, which have lasted over 50 days and at times led to some property destruction and minor attacks on authorities, as a “violent mob” of “lawless anarchists.”
This is happening on the streets of our hometown of Portland, OR. We will continue to resist. They are fucking with the wrong city #TheResistancepic.twitter.com/byOUkcp5iZ
“The city of Portland has been under siege… by a violent mob while local political leaders refuse to restore order to protect their city,” he said in a lengthy July 16 statement. “Each night, lawless anarchists destroy and desecrate property, including the federal courthouse, and attack the brave law enforcement officers protecting it.”
“DHS will not abdicate its solemn duty to protect federal facilities and those within them,” he added.
But critics say the heavy-handed approach is an overreaction to mostly peaceful protests and detrimental to the rule of law. “This is the stuff of fascist regimes, not American democracy,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) told me. “It’s important that we don’t have secret police in America,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) also said in an interview.
Two direct consequences have come out of the national controversy.
First, activists and the lawyers who represent them say the once-dwindling crowds are growing again in response to the federal government’s actions. “More and more protesters are coming out each night,” said Ashlee Albies, a local attorney who represents Don’t Shoot Portland, a civil rights organization. “There are more protesters now than there are feds.”
A mounting standoff, some worry, could potentially lead to even more tensions and violence. In just the past day, demonstrators burned the Portland police union’s building and federal officers fired tear gas at mothers peacefully protesting.
Second, a legal battle is now underway, pitting Portland’s citizens against afederal government with broad statutory authorities. Few, though, believe the courts will compel the Trump administration to stand down. At most, it might lead federal law enforcement to act more cautiously, but they’ll still operate in areas where locals don’t want them to.
Which means the events in Portland are likely to persist for quite some time, testing the limits of federal authority in American cities and the resolve of those who live in them. “At this point, we’re already in a constitutional crisis,” said Juan Chávez, a lawyer and director of the civil rights project at the Oregon Justice Resource Center.
Two months ago, the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man killed by police officers in Minneapolis, sparked nationwide protests calling for racial equality and expansive police reform. As in other American cities, thousands took to the streets of Portland and vowed to keep the pressure on local and federal leaders. But the situation in Portland quickly turned ugly.
From the start, Portland’s police force used tear gas to maintain order. Such measures led a US district judge on June 9 to ban the use of tear gas except in instances “in which the lives or safety of the public or the police are at risk.” That order would be expanded two weeks later to include rubber bullets and other nonlethal munitions.
In the midst of the legal battle, Portland’s police force claimed order was unraveling as statues of Confederate generals and former Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were defaced or torn down.
State lawmakers passed a law saying local police could only use tear gas on protesters if police declared that a “riot” was underway that could severely impact the safety of officers and property. That provided law enforcement quite a loophole to continue using tear gas, local activists told me — one that police have exploited since.
Disperse from the area. CS gas is being used.
That not only angered protesters but also impacted uninvolved citizens. In some cases, the tear gas would waft into residential areas, impacting drivers, homeowners, gas station attendants, and public transportation riders far away from the standoff.
But in some ways that wasn’t so surprising, locals said: Portland’s police had long been known to use aggressive tactics, as evidenced by a recent incident in which officers swarmed a protester on his bicycle to arrest him.
WATCH – Portland Police officers knock a protester off of his bicycle and arrest him outside of Lownsdale Square Park near the Federal Courthouse downtown #LiveOnK2pic.twitter.com/tow0GzeyzW
Portland’s police department continued to defend its actions, though, claiming such measures were necessary to tamp down unruly or unlawful protests.
Tear gas “is uncomfortable, but effective at dispersing crowds,” Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell said in a July 1 video posted to Twitter. “We would rather not use it. We would rather have those in the area follow the law and not engage in dangerous behavior.”
Deploying tear gas and other crowd-control methods didn’t compel all protesters to stop demonstrating, but they did lead to a reduction in numbers, activists said. Still, any amount of protesters tussling with law enforcement was apparently too much for President Donald Trump, so he got involved.
On June 26, Trump signed an executive order to send federal officers to cities around the country to protect statues, monuments, and federal property. Five days later, Wolf, the acting Department of Homeland Security secretary, formed the Protecting American Communities Task Force to coordinate the response nationwide.
“DHS is answering the President’s call to use our law enforcement personnel across the country to protect our historic landmarks,” Wolf said in a July 1 statement. “We won’t stand idly by while violent anarchists and rioters seek not only to vandalize and destroy the symbols of our nation, but to disrupt law and order and sow chaos in our communities.”
According to DHS, the new task force would “conduct ongoing assessments of potential civil unrest or destruction and allocate resources to protect people and property,” which might “involve potential surge activity to ensure the continuing protection of critical locations.”
The task force was put together in haste. The units DHS would send didn’t have the proper training to deal with mass demonstrations, per a Homeland Security memo prepared for Wolf and reported by the New York Times on Saturday. And yet, groups like “BORTAC” — a Border Patrol unit that mainly investigates drug dealers and acts like a SWAT team — deployed to Portland in early July.
