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EDUCATION&CAREERS
July 22, 2020
Federal agents disperse Black Lives Matter protesters near the Mark O. Hatfield United States
Courthouse on Monday. Officers used teargas and projectiles to move the crowd after some protest-
ers tore down a fence fronting the courthouse. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
Wall of Moms Enter Fray
c ontinued froM f ront
“This is a democracy, not a dic-
tatorship,” Gov. Brown, a Demo-
crat, said on Twitter. “We cannot
have secret police abducting peo-
ple in unmarked vehicles. I can’t
believe I have to say that to the
President of the United States.”
Multnomah County Commis-
sioner Sharon Meieran says she
joined a nonviolent group of pro-
testers called a “Wall of Moms”
on Saturday night and was tear-
gassed by the federal police of-
ficers without warning. She re-
turned to the protests on Sunday
night, saying it was necessary to
show her opposition to the “feder-
al occupying force.”The group of
women wearing yellow shirts then
grew more pronounced on Sunday
and Monday.
Portland has seen nightly unrest
since the killing of George Floyd
in Minneapolis on Memorial Day.
The death of Floyd, a Black man
killed when a white police offi-
cer pressed his knee into Floyd’s
neck, have sparked massive pro-
test around the country and a
movement pushing for racial jus-
tice and changes to policing
Constitutional law experts said
the actions of federal officers in
Portland are a “red flag” in what
could become a test case of states’
rights as the Trump administration
expands federal policing.
“The idea that there’s a threat to
a federal courthouse and the feder-
al authorities are going to swoop
in and do whatever they want to
do without any cooperation and
coordination with state and local
authorities is extraordinary out-
side the context of a civil war,”
said Michael Dorf, a professor of
constitutional law at Cornell Uni-
versity.
“It is a standard move of au-
thoritarians to use the pretext
of quelling violence to bring in
force, thereby prompting a violent
response and then bootstrapping
the initial use of force in the first
place,” Dorf said.
The Department of Homeland
Security tweeted that federal
agents were barricaded in Port-
land’s U.S. courthouse at one
point and had lasers pointed at
their eyes in an attempt to blind
them.
“Portland is rife with violent
anarchists assaulting federal of-
ficers and federal buildings,” the
tweet said. “This isn’t a peaceful
crowd. These are federal crimes.”
Top leaders in the U.S. House
said Sunday that they were
“alarmed” by the Trump admin-
istration’s tactics in Portland and
other cities. They have called on
federal inspectors general to in-
vestigate.
Trump, who’s called the pro-
testers “anarchists and agitators,”
said the DHS and Justice Depart-
ment agents are on hand to restore
order at the courthouse and help
Portland.
The Trump administration’s
actions run counter to the usual
philosophies of American conser-
vatives, who typically treat state
and local rights with great sanctity
and have long been deeply wary
of the federal government — par-
ticularly its armed agents — inter-
ceding in most situations.
But Trump has shown that his
actions don’t always reflect tradi-
tional conservatism — particular-
ly when politics, and in this case
an impending election, are in play.
The protests have roiled Port-
land for more than seven weeks.
Many rallies have attracted thou-
sands and been largely peaceful.
But smaller groups of up to sev-
eral hundred people have focused
on federal property and local law
enforcement buildings, at times
setting fires to police precincts,
smashing windows and clashing
violently with local police.
Portland police used tear gas on
multiple occasions until a feder-
al court order banned its officers
from doing so without declaring a
riot. Now, concern is growing that
the tear gas is being used against
demonstrators by federal officers
instead.
Anger at the federal presence es-
calated on July 11, when a protest-
er was hospitalized with critical in-
juries after a U.S. Marshals Service
officer struck him in the head with
a less-lethal round. Video shows
the man, identified as Donavan
LaBella, standing across the street
from the officers holding a speaker
over his head when he was hit.
Court documents filed in cases
against protesters show that feder-
al officers have posted lookouts on
the upper stories of the courthouse
and have plainclothes officers
circulating in the crowd. Court
papers in a federal case against
a man accused of shining a laser
in the eyes of Federal Protective
Service agents show that Portland
police turned him over to U.S.
authorities after federal officers
identified him.
Mayor Wheeler, who’s has
been under fire for his handling
of the protests, said on national
TV talk shows Sunday that the
demonstrations were dwindling
before federal officers engaged.
“Their presence here is actual-
ly leading to more violence and
more vandalism,” Wheeler said on
CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Indeed, crowds of demonstra-
tors had begun to dwindle a week
ago, and several Black community
leaders had begun to call for the
violence to end.
But by the weekend, the pres-
ence of federal troops and Trump’s
repeated references to Portland as
a hotbed of “anarchists” seemed to
give a new life to the protests and
attract a broader base.
On Sunday night, a crowd es-
timated at more than 500 people
gathered outside the courthouse,
including dozens of self-described
“moms” who linked arms in front
of a chain-link fence outside the
courthouse.
The demonstrations continued
into Monday night and grew to
more than 1,000 people.
--Associated Press contributed
to this article.