Portland protest groups Don’t Shoot Portland and Wall of Moms are among those suing the Trump administration for what they claim are violent and intimidating…
Portland protest groups Don’t Shoot Portland and Wall of Moms are among those suing the Trump administration for what they claim are violent and intimidating federal actions that override local law enforcement and aim to quell peaceful and lawful protests.
The civil action suit (pdf), filed on Monday in the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia, accuses Attorney General William Barr, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and eleven other federal agencies and individuals of implementing an “unlawful policy to quash” protests and free speech.
The plaintiffs, including five individual Black Lives Matter protesters, claim in the lawsuit that they have been threatened with bodily harm and arrested without probable cause, shot at with rubber bullets and other projectiles by federal officers and “tear-gassed night after night, left vomiting and unable to eat or sleep because of the toxic poison blasted at them.”
“Since July 4, they have been repeatedly attacked by an army of over 100 camouflage-clad federal agents,” the lawsuit claims, alleging violation of constitutional rights to freedom of speech, assembly, and due process, as well as freedom from unreasonable seizure.
The seven plaintiffs also argue federal officers are overstepping their law enforcement mandate, claiming that Operation Diligent Valor, as the Trump administration has named the deployment of federal agents to Portland following weeks of violent unrest, does not meet the legally-permitted standard of protecting federal property.
