Trump regime still making trouble for Pacific Northwest cities despite purported exit pact

Since our last post on the ongo­ing demon­stra­tions in Port­land, which end­ed with con­cern about addi­tion­al fed­er­al offi­cers qui­et­ly hav­ing entered Seat­tle, the scope and direc­tion of the demon­stra­tions in both cities have changed.

Fed­er­al offi­cers appear to be depart­ing, the courts are increas­ing­ly busy, and there are still con­flicts to be resolved between the groups demon­strat­ing in both cities, their respec­tive city coun­cils, and their local police forces.

Portland

On Wednes­day, July 22nd, 2020, the Port­land City Coun­cil vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to end any fur­ther coop­er­a­tion between the Port­land Police Bureau and fed­er­al offi­cers sent to pro­tect fed­er­al prop­er­ties like the Mark O. Hat­field Cour­t­house and to active­ly counter demon­stra­tions around these same facilities.

On Fri­day, July 24th, U.S. Dis­trict Judge Michael W. Mos­man denied a request for an injunc­tion sought by Ore­gon Sate Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ellen Rosen­blum to force fed­er­al offi­cers to iden­ti­fy both them­selves and their agency before arrest­ing or detain­ing a per­son, and to pro­hib­it arrests that lack prob­a­ble cause.

Mos­man declared that the state of Ore­gon lacked stand­ing in large part because no dam­age to the inter­ests of the state had been shown to have tak­en place.

He also found that no demon­stra­tor had been includ­ed in the injunc­tion, and that “injunc­tive relief requires more than a show­ing that a plain­tiff has been harmed; it requires a show­ing that she will like­ly be harmed again.”

This sec­ond rea­son is based large­ly on fed­er­al Supreme Court case Lyons ver­sus City of Los Ange­les, which sets a very high standard.

That same day, two of Ore­gon’s mem­bers of Con­gress — Earl Blu­me­nauer and Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, joined by sev­er­al col­leagues — sent a let­ter to act­ing Direc­tor of Home­land Secu­ri­ty Chad Wolf, request­ing his resignation.

“The peo­ple of Port­land were protest­ing police bru­tal­i­ty, and you respond­ed to them with fur­ther bru­tal­i­ty… These are author­i­tar­i­an tac­tics that go against the bedrock of our demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples,” the let­ter stated.

Mean­while, the Unit­ed States Attor­ney for the Dis­trict of Ore­gon, Bil­ly J. Williams, said that the demon­stra­tions in down­town Port­land were “hijack­ing the moment in his­to­ry” and ques­tioned how long the larg­er com­mu­ni­ty would tol­er­ate the destruc­tion of prop­er­ty as a response to the mur­ders of Black peo­ple by police.

Williams also ini­tial­ly denied that fed­er­al offi­cers had gone beyond the bound­aries of fed­er­al prop­er­ty to con­front peo­ple protest­ing, but when con­front­ed with evi­dence that it had hap­pened, he amend­ed his comments.

State leg­is­la­tors in Ore­gon, hop­ing to be more respon­sive to the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment than Con­gress has been, have released con­cepts for the Leg­is­la­ture’s next round of police reform bills, includ­ing a com­plete ban on the use of choke­holds and tear gas as well as new efforts to crack down on the arbi­tra­tion appeal process for the dis­ci­pline of law enforce­ment personnel.

(The issue of a more com­pre­hen­sive ban on tear gas mat­ters, as the last bill passed in spe­cial ses­sion restrict­ing tear gas use has­n’t stopped the Port­land Police Bureau from con­tin­u­ing to use it.)

It isn’t known as yet when the next spe­cial ses­sion of the Leg­is­la­ture will take place, but the Joint Com­mit­tee on Trans­par­ent Polic­ing and Use of Force Reform will hold a series of hear­ings on the concepts.

Last week, well over one thou­sand and pos­si­bly as many as two thou­sand demon­stra­tors were protest­ing in front of fed­er­al facil­i­ties in down­town Port­land. As can be seen, ten­sions ran high and tear gas was abun­dant in response — enough for the lat­ter to reach inmates at the Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty Deten­tion Center.

On Sat­ur­day, July 25th, U.S. Attor­ney Williams stat­ed in a phone inter­view that the ban approved by the Port­land City Coun­cil on July 22nd was “non­sen­si­cal, polit­i­cal the­ater” and urged local cit­i­zens to con­vince “vio­lent extrem­ists,” who keep try­ing to breach a pro­tec­tive fence around the fed­er­al facil­i­ties, to leave.

Lat­er that evening, some­where in the neigh­bor­hood of four thou­sand pro­test­ers were present, and fed­er­al offi­cers ini­tial­ly did­n’t con­front them, retreat­ing into the Mark O. Hat­field Fed­er­al Cour­t­house. But when a sec­tion of fence, put up by fed­er­al offi­cers some time ago and a bone of con­tention ever since, was torn down around 1 AM Sun­day morn­ing (with­out the demon­stra­tors cross­ing onto fed­er­al prop­er­ty), Port­land police declared a riot and fed­er­al offi­cers re-emerged to dri­ve the demon­stra­tors back using tear gas and pep­per spray.

As a result of Sat­ur­day evening’s protests, addi­tion­al fed­er­al offi­cers were being sent to sup­port those already in place in Portland.

Black Lives Mat­ter rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Port­land, mean­while, have been frus­trat­ed by the direc­tion in which the demon­stra­tions are going.

One recent devel­op­ment, how­ev­er, is that the lead­er­ship of the Wall of Moms involved in the Port­land demon­stra­tions have hand­ed over their author­i­ty to Don’t Shoot Port­land for guid­ance and instruction.

For those inter­est­ed, there is a brief and effec­tive visu­al sum­ma­ry here of how the sit­u­a­tion in Port­land has esca­lat­ed in recent weeks, and this piece high­lights por­tions of this past weekend.

On Mon­day, July 27th, two new law­suits were filed. The first, by a group led by the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union (ACLU), is a motion for con­tempt and for sanc­tions against fed­er­al author­i­ties for refus­ing to com­ply with a restrain­ing order on June 23rd that pro­hibit­ing fed­er­al troops from arrest­ing or tar­get­ing jour­nal­ists and legal observers unless they were com­mit­ting a spe­cif­ic crime.

The sec­ond, by Don’t Shoot Port­land, the group Wall of Moms and five indi­vid­ual plain­tiffs, claims fed­er­al offi­cials used intim­i­da­tion, threats of vio­lence and dis­ap­pear­ances to deprive pro­test­ers of their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to free speech, free assem­bly and due process, and their free­dom from unrea­son­able seizures.

On Tues­day, July 29, Gov­er­nor Kate Brown announced a deal with the Trump regime that would remove most fed­er­al offi­cers, replac­ing them with state police to pro­tect fed­er­al facil­i­ties in down­town Port­land. The Trump regime is send­ing mixed mes­sages in response, but the deal appears as if it will proceed.

POSTSCRIPT: By now you may have heard of the sto­ry of some fed­er­al offi­cers at the Port­land demon­stra­tions with “ZTI” tags on their gear, iden­ti­fy­ing them as con­tract employ­ees of ZTI Solu­tions, a firm that has been hired in the past by the Amer­i­can mil­i­tary, poten­tial­ly open­ing accu­sa­tions of their being mer­ce­nar­ies giv­en their present role in Portland. 

How­ev­er, the ZTI busi­ness is appar­ent­ly not what it seems.

That said, as with the Port­land Police, report­ed ear­li­er here, it is more than prob­lem­at­ic that those who are detained, arrest­ed and/or harmed can­not iden­ti­fy these indi­vid­u­als to bring charges against them or the author­i­ty they represent.

Seattle

Late on the evening of Wednes­day, July 22nd, a group of approx­i­mate­ly one hun­dred and fifty peo­ple gath­ered at Cal Ander­son Park on behalf of the Youth Lib­er­a­tion Front Seat­tle Divi­sion and pro­ceed­ed to van­dal­ize local busi­ness­es in Capi­tol Hill, re-assem­bled at Cal Ander­son Park, then dispersed.

A fed­er­al tac­ti­cal bor­der con­trol team arrived at Boe­ing Field on Thurs­day, July 23rd, osten­si­bly to pro­tect fed­er­al facil­i­ties in the Seat­tle area, join­ing Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion and Fed­er­al Pro­tec­tive Ser­vice per­son­nel qui­et­ly brought to the city some­time in ear­ly July.

King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine react­ed by post­ing a pair of tweets. “Let me be clear: this com­mu­ni­ty rejects Trump’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al use of fed­er­al force. It is a trans­par­ent attempt to intim­i­date. But we will not be intim­i­dat­ed… Know your rights. Stay vig­i­lant, stay safe, and stay away from fed­er­al agents.”

The fol­low­ing day, Fri­day, July 24th, Seat­tle May­or Jen­ny Durkan stat­ed at a press con­fer­ence: “Be peace­ful… If you come out in the streets and raise your voic­es, not only is it your right, but in many ways, it’s our oblig­a­tion, but for those who are bent on destruc­tion, those who want the fight to come, I say to you stop.”

That same day, the Depart­ment of Jus­tice request­ed a restrain­ing order to pre­vent the Seat­tle Police Depart­ment from imple­ment­ing the Seat­tle City Council’s ban on crowd-con­trol weapons, due to take effect on Sun­day, July 26th, which had been passed unan­i­mous­ly by the City Coun­cil on June 15th after some dis­agree­ment over final specifics.

Lat­er on July 24th, Judge James Robart of the Unit­ed States Dis­trict Court for the West­ern Dis­trict of Wash­ing­ton grant­ed the request, due to expire with­in four­teen days, with a brief­ing and joint sta­tus report required regard­ing the sta­tus of the restrain­ing order to be avail­able no lat­er than August 1st.

Here’s a bit of back­ground on what led up to the restrain­ing order.

On June 12th, Judge Richard Jones of the Unit­ed States Dis­trict Court for the West­ern Dis­trict of Wash­ing­ton issued a tem­po­rary restrain­ing order that restrict­ed the Seat­tle Police Depart­ment from using spe­cif­ic “less lethal” crowd con­trol devices, though police would be allowed to use such weapons if they saw pro­test­ers engag­ing in “vio­lent or life-threat­en­ing activity.”

On June 15th, the Seat­tle City Coun­cil passed its more com­pre­hen­sive ban.  It was returned by May­or Durkan on June 26th, unsigned, and attest­ed (its exis­tence offi­cial­ly declared) that same day by the City Clerk.

On June 17th, Judge Jones’ restrain­ing order was extend­ed to Sep­tem­ber 30th.

On July 17th, the office of the City Attor­ney for the City of Seat­tle served notice that it had been advised by the Depart­ment of Jus­tice that the com­pre­hen­sive ban was in vio­la­tion of the fed­er­al con­sent decree for the Seat­tle Police Depart­ment that has been in place since 2012.

The con­sent decree is an an agree­ment made after a Depart­ment of Jus­tice inves­ti­ga­tion found the Seat­tle Police Depart­ment had a pat­tern of using exces­sive force, and also had poli­cies and prac­tices that could result in bias against minori­ties. The City of Seat­tle and the Seat­tle Police Depart­ment are required to present any pro­posed changes to exist­ing use-of-force and crowd con­trol poli­cies to the Depart­ment of Jus­tice and police mon­i­tor for review and ulti­mate­ly to the court for its approval. This was not done regard­ing the com­pre­hen­sive ban.

This vio­la­tion was the basis for the request by the Depart­ment of Jus­tice for its restrain­ing order. Judge Robart’s action means that Judge Jones’ restrain­ing order remains the basis for the restric­tion of crowd con­trol devices.

Seat­tle Police Chief Car­men Best had react­ed to this sit­u­a­tion on July 23rd with a state­ment that among oth­er things stat­ed that such restric­tions “will cre­ate even more dan­ger­ous cir­cum­stances for our offi­cers to inter­vene using what they have left – riot shields and riot batons.”

The next day, the win­dows of the South­west Precinct police facil­i­ty were board­ed up, imply­ing that the facil­i­ty might be aban­doned, in “an adjust­ed deploy­ment in response to any demon­stra­tions this week­end,” as had been done ear­li­er at one point at the East Precinct police facil­i­ty in Capi­tol Hill on June 8th after May­or Durkin ordered pro­tec­tive bar­ri­ers removed, which were seen as a focal point of mul­ti­ple days of clash­es between demon­stra­tors and police.

This has been a point of con­tention for some time now between Chief Best and Seat­tle City Coun­cilmem­ber Lisa Her­bold, whose West Seat­tle-cen­tered dis­trict includes the South­west Precinct facility.

On Sat­ur­day, July 25th, demon­stra­tors peace­ably began a march at Seat­tle Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege, with “Wall of Moms” and “Wall of Vets” pro­test­ers on hand.

How­ev­er, some indi­vid­u­als even­tu­al­ly slipped away from the march and lit five trail­ers on fire at the con­struc­tion site at 12th Avenue and Jef­fer­son Street for the new King Coun­ty Chil­dren and Fam­i­ly Jus­tice Cen­ter, and lat­er repeat­ed the process at a Star­bucks on 12th Avenue and East Colum­bia Street.

Oth­ers con­cur­rent­ly attempt­ed to dam­age the lob­by of the Seat­tle Police East Precinct, appar­ent­ly using an explo­sive that put an eight-inch hole in the facil­i­ty and caused struc­tur­al dam­age, though details are still some­what sketchy.

The Seat­tle Police had to evac­u­ate apart­ments above the Star­bucks for the safe­ty of the res­i­dents and declared that a riot was tak­ing place, which led to the Seat­tle Police using flash-bangs, pep­per spray, forty-mil­lime­ter “sponge tip” rounds and blast balls, even­tu­al­ly arrest­ing forty-sev­en demonstrators.

Fifty-nine police offi­cers were declared injured in the demon­stra­tions. There was no offi­cial dec­la­ra­tion of the num­ber of injuries suf­fered by protesters.

Police Chief Best, at a brief press con­fer­ence late Sat­ur­day night, said: “I implore peo­ple to come to the city in peace… We sup­port everyone’s First Amend­ment right to free speech and to gath­er and assem­ble in such a way. But what we saw today was not peace­ful… The riot­ers had no regard for the community’s safe­ty, for offi­cers’ safe­ty or for the busi­ness­es and prop­er­ty that they destroyed.”

The fol­low­ing day, Sun­day, July 26th, sev­er­al pre­emp­tive arrests and acqui­si­tion and removal of sup­port vehi­cles for the demon­stra­tors at West­lake Plaza took the air out of a planned demon­stra­tion at the Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforce­ment (ICE) offices along­side the US Immi­gra­tion Review Court on 2nd Avenue.

Cal Ander­son Park was also declared closed, but demon­stra­tors orga­nized there any­way and moved ahead with their demon­stra­tions just before 7 PM, with police attempt­ing to restrict move­ment with­out being imme­di­ate­ly con­fronta­tion­al. How­ev­er, by mid-to late evening, most of the demon­stra­tors had dispersed.

On Mon­day, July 27th, the Seat­tle-King Coun­ty branch of Black Lives Mat­ter and the ACLU filed a motion of con­tempt for vio­lat­ing Judge Jones’ restrain­ing order, “ambush­ing peace­ful protesters.”

On Tues­day, July 28th, Seat­tle author­i­ties were noti­fied that the fed­er­al tac­ti­cal bor­der con­trol team that had arrived on July 23rd had been withdrawn.

This saga is by no means over. Only time will tell what the future holds.