Portland mayor says Trump administration putting city’s protesters in danger

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler says President Donald Trump has used Portland “as a staging ground to further his political agenda,” that federal officers under Trump’s orders are endangering residents and they must be held accountable for their actions in the city.

During a news conference Friday with Police Chief Chuck Lovell, Wheeler said the city has no oversight authority on federal officers during downtown demonstrations. He reiterated that Portland officials didn’t ask for federal officers to be deployed and said local officers can end any violence that occurs on the streets without federal help

“Mr. President, we see right through you,” Wheeler said. “So do us a favor: Keep your troops in your own buildings or have them leave our city.”

Gov. Kate Brown has also called for the president to recall the federal officers, and Democratic members of Oregon’s congressional delegation said they would demand a federal investigation into the deployment and actions of federal officers, which have included seriously injuring an unarmed Portland protestor apparently unprovoked July 11 by hitting him in the head with a projectile.

Oregon’s U.S. Attorney Billy Williams also said he wanted an investigation into the federal officers’ actions after OPB reported officers have taken people into custody and driven them away in unmarked vans. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon also on Friday called the actions of federal officers in Portland “unconstitutional.”

U.S. District Judge Michael Simon on Friday granted the oregnization’s request to add the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Marshals Service to a temporary restraining order preventing police from dispersing, arresting or targeting journalists or legal observers at protests.

Meanwhile, the president and Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad Wolf have blamed state and city leaders for not doing enough to end violence that occurs during protests in Portland and in recent days have doubled down on their plans to keep federal officers on Portland streets.

Wolf called protesters “lawless anarchists” Thursday and said that federal officers were in the city to defend the federal courthouse. He was in the city the same day meeting with federal law officials about the response to the demonstrations.

Wolf said Friday on Twitter that two Homeland Security officers were injured during a downtown Portland demonstration Thursday when they were “assaulted with lasers and frozen water bottles from violent criminals attempting to tear down federal property.”

Protests against systemic racism and police brutality have occurred every night in Portland since May 29. Though the majority have been peaceful, some protesters who’ve gathered near city and federal buildings downtown have defaced buildings with graffiti, launched objects including water bottles, rocks and fireworks toward officers and shined lasers in officers’ eyes.

Federal and city police responses to the demonstrators as a whole over the last seven weeks have generated widespread criticism including from local and state elected leaders who’ve called for changes in police tactics ranging from completely ending the use of tear gas on crowds to stopping the practice of Portland officers wearing riot gear while responding to the protests.

The city also faces several lawsuits related to officers’ tear gas use as well as attacks on protesters and journalists at the demonstrations. A federal judge has banned Portland police from using tear gas except in cases where the safety and lives of the officers and the public are at risk.

In recent days, attention has shifted more toward the response of federal officers.

Wheeler on Thursday acknowledged that Portland police have made “mistakes” over the last seven weeks of responses to demonstrations. But he called attention to the fact that there is a process for the public to hold Portland police officials responsible by filing complaints with the city’s Independent Police Review office whereas there is no apparent process to seek accountability for federal officers.

Lovell said although the police bureau’s main headquarters are sandwiched between the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse and the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building, Portland police and federal officers have operated separately. He did say both jurisdictions do communicate with one another and know when the other engages in some form of action during demonstrations.

Lovell and Wheeler said they didn’t meet with Wolf while he was in Portland, but the police chief later said police union president Officer Daryl Turner did.

In one of a series of photos Wolf posted Friday on Twitter, among the people the Homeland Security secretary is shown meeting is an officer other than Turner in a camouflage uniform displaying a Portland Police Bureau patch.

Wheeler said city officials sensed last week that protests were winding down in size and energy and expected that would have continued if not for the deployment of federal officers.

“We actually believed that we would be in the clear by this weekend,” Wheeler said. “And clearly, what’s happened over the course of this week, with the federal officers stepping up both their rhetoric as well as the violence of their actions, it’s set us way back.”

If the federal officers remain into next week, Wheeler said the city will continue to demand they leave and that federal officials launch an investigation, the results of which will be made public.

— Everton Bailey Jr.

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