Judge declines to halt U.S. arrests at protests
Oregon suit deemed to have no stake
PORTLAND, Ore. — A U.S. judge on Friday denied an order sought by Oregon’s top law enforcement officer to stop federal agents from arresting people during nightly protests in Portland that have roiled the progressive city and pitted local officials against the Trump administration.
U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman said the state lacked standing to sue on behalf of protesters.
Demonstrators have taken to the streets to oppose racial injustice since George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police two months ago, and many protests have spiraled into violence. President Donald Trump decried the disorder and sent in federal agents early this month to quell the unrest despite an outcry from Democratic leaders in Oregon.
Protesters in Portland have been targeting the federal courthouse, setting fires
outside and vandalizing the building that U.S. authorities say they have a duty to protect. Federal agents have used tear gas, less-lethal ammunition that left one person critically injured and other force to scatter rioters, and they have made arrests.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum sued the Trump administration last week, alleging federal agents have arrested protesters without probable cause, whisked them away in unmarked cars and used excessive force. U.S. authorities deny those accusations.
Rosenblum sought a temporary restraining order to “immediately stop federal authorities from unlawfully detaining Oregonians.”
Federal authorities have said officials in Oregon have been unwilling to work with them to stop the vandalism and violence against federal buildings and officers. Homeland Security acting Secretary Chad Wolf said agents have been assaulted with lasers, bats, fireworks, bottles and other weapons.
David Morrell, an attorney for the U.S. government, called the motion “extraordinary” and told the judge in a hearing this week that it was based solely on “a few threadbare declarations” from witnesses and a Twitter video. Morrell called the protests “dangerous and volatile.”
Rosenblum’s motion was one of several lawsuits against authorities’ actions. A different federal judge late Thursday blocked U.S. agents from arresting or using physical force against journalists and legal observers at demonstrations.
U.S. Judge Michael Simon had previously ruled that journalists and legal observers are exempt from police orders requiring protesters to disperse once an unlawful assembly has been declared. U.S. lawyers intervened, saying journalists should have to leave when ordered.
“This order is a victory for the rule of law,” said Jann Carson, interim executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon.
The judge said First Amendment concerns held more sway than law enforcement officials’ objections.
“None of the government’s proffered interests outweigh the public’s interest in accurate and timely information about how law enforcement is treating” protesters, Simon wrote.
His order is in effect for two weeks, and he said journalists and observers must wear clear identification.
MAYOR IN MIDDLE
Before the action from federal officials, the unrest frustrated Mayor Ted Wheeler and other local authorities, who had said a small cadre of violent activists were drowning out the message of peaceful protesters. But the Democrat says the federal presence is exacerbating a tense situation and he’s repeatedly told federal agents to leave.
Wheeler, who was teargassed as he joined protesters this week, has faced opposition from all sides, for not bringing the protests under control before federal officers arrived and for standing by as Portland police used tear gas and other tactics.
Wolf denied that federal agents were inflaming the situation in Portland and said Wheeler legitimized criminality by going to the front of the crowd of demonstrators where fires were lit and people were trying to pull down the protective fence.
In the lawsuit, Oregon had asked the judge to immediately command agents from the Department of Homeland Security, the Customs and Border Protection agency, the Federal Protective Service and the U.S. Marshals Service to stop detaining protesters without probable cause, to identify themselves before arresting anyone and to explain why an arrest is taking place.
The action comes as U.S. agents have arrested 18 people in Portland this week as the clash with protesters turned chaotic for another night.
The number doesn’t include arrests made early Friday, when federal officers again used tear gas to force thousands of demonstrators from crowding around a U.S. courthouse, a target of two months of nightly protests.
Protesters and rioters projected lasers on the building and tried to take down a security fence. They scattered as clouds of gas rose up and agents fired crowd-control munitions, which critically injured a demonstrator this month.
The protesters who were arrested face federal charges including assaulting federal officers, arson and damaging federal property, U.S. Attorney Billy J. Williams said. All the defendants are local, and they were released after making a court appearance.
U.S. officers “working to protect the courthouse have been subjected to nightly threats and assaults from demonstrators while performing their duties,” according to a statement from Williams’ office.
Wolf previously said 43 federal arrests had been made as of Tuesday.
CLASHING CONCERNS
Those attending the protests are overwhelmingly white, a reflection of Oregon’s makeup. Its population is only 2% Black, compared with 13% for the entire U.S., largely because of the state’s past. Its constitution excluded Black people from living in Oregon until the clause was repealed in 1927.
Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, the first Black woman elected to that office, rejected the idea that the Black Lives Matter protests are being hijacked by white people.
“We cannot afford not to respond to this attack on our democracy, this attack on our Constitution,” Hardesty said. “And we would be foolish to believe that we could stay focused just on Black lives and not address the physical assaults that are taking place.”
State Sen. Lew Frederick, a Black Democrat who’s dodged pepper balls fired by federal agents at the protests, said the Trump administration “miscalculated” if it thought it could end the demonstrations with a show of force.
“It reignited the protest movement in Portland,” Frederick said, adding that he’s seen more Black people demonstrating now than in the early days.
The Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of more than 150 Black-led organizations across the U.S., said it remains “undeterred.”
“As we witness Portland becoming a war zone, we understand clearly that this is an attempt to intimidate not just protesters on the streets of Portland but to derail our movement in defense of Black lives,” said Chinyere Tutashinda, a coalition organizer.
Some Black protesters, however, say that white people who have been throwing water bottles at law enforcement officers and causing vandalism are setting back the movement.
“When we ask people to stop, they don’t. I have been pushed tonight. I have been shoved tonight. I have been told to shut up,” Portland demonstrator Julianne Jackson said. “If white people want to help us, this is not helping us.”
AGENTS IN SEATTLE
Meanwhile, more federal agents have been dispatched to Seattle to protect federal property as unrest lingers in the city after the shutdown of a protest zone where demonstrators camped for weeks during police-brutality protests.
The agents are with a special response team of the Cushad toms and Border Protection agency. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said she felt she was misled by Wolf, whom she said told her that the U.S. government had no plans to send federal agents to Seattle.
“I don’t want to say I was lied to, but I think there was maybe semantics that weren’t forthcoming,” Durkan said Friday.
Durkan urged people to protest peacefully over the weekend at planned rallies that are likely to be large. She also said she hoped to avoid what is happening in Portland.
“I cannot overstate it enough, what is happening is frightening to me,” Durkan said. “It is frightening that you would use federal agents for political purposes.”
The agents sent to Seattle are on standby to help other federal law enforcement officials protect federal facilities in the city, according to two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the plans who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the operation publicly.
The agents arrived after businesses in Seattle were vandalized in the downtown area and in the nearby Capitol Hill neighborhood. A small section of Capitol Hill was occupied last month by the protesters and turned into the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest Zone.
Demonstrators took over several blocks for about two weeks until authorities returned in force and cleared out the area on July 1 after two fatal shootings.
Brian Moran, the U.S. attorney for Western Washington, said the federal agents were there solely to protect federal properties, adding that the federal courthouse in downtown Seattle was broken into last weekend and damaged by a smoke bomb and graffiti.
“These are the places where federal judges decide cases and controversies, including those filed by protesters against the city, where Social Security benefits are processed, citizenship is made possible, and where the rights of the accused are protected,” Moran said.