Mayor of Portland to Trump: Get your troops out of the city
The mayor of Portland has demanded that President Donald Trump remove militarised federal agents he sent to the city after some detained people on streets far from federal property they were sent to protect.
“Keep your troops in your own buildings, or have them leave our city,” Mayor Ted Wheeler said at a news conference.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown said Trump is looking for a confrontation in the hopes of winning political points elsewhere. It also serves as a distraction from the coronavirus pandemic, which is causing spiking numbers of infections in Oregon and the nation.
Brown’s spokesman, Charles Boyle, said that arresting people without probable cause is “extraordinarily concerning 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, the Marshals Service, Customs and Border Protection and Federal Protection Service alleging they have violated the civil rights of Oregonians by detaining them without probable cause. She will also seek a temporary restraining order against them.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon said the 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 off the street we call it kidnapping,” said Jann Carson, interim executive director of the ACLU
Oregon. “The actions of the militarised federal officers are flat-out unconstitutional and will not go unanswered.”
Federal officers have charged at least 13 people with crimes related to the protests so far, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.
Some have been detained by the federal courthouse, which has been the scene of protests. But others were grabbed blocks away.
“This is part of the core media strategy out of Trump’s White House: to use federal troops to bolster his sagging polling data,” Wheeler said. “And it is an absolute abuse of federal law enforcement officials.”
One video showed two people in helmets and green camouflage with “police” patches grabbing a person on the sidewalk, handcuffing them and taking them into an unmarked vehicle.
“Who are you?” someone asks the pair, who do not respond. —AP