Oregon officials have claimed a side. They’ve chosen the violent rioters of antifa and Black Lives Matter over the civil rights interests of citizens of the City of Portland.
The state of Oregon and the ACLU have filed lawsuits demanding the Trump administration from arresting and questioning the violent antifa and Black Lives Matter terrorists who have conducted nightly riots for the last 50 nights.
Riven by the more than six weeks of nightly rioting, the Trump administration sent federal police from several different agencies to defend the federal courthouse in downtown Portland. In one wild night, federal police officers from the Department of Homeland Security, Border Patrol, and other agencies battled antifa terrorists lobbing IEDs, rocks, and bottles and shining lasers in the eyes of officers. Police battled for six hours to keep the terrorists from getting inside the glass door they’d earlier shattered.
Reportedly starting July 14, the federal officers have stopped and questioned suspected black bloc-attired antifa militants in the middle of the night. They attempted to set up yet another “autonomous zone” right across the street from the federal courthouse.
Rioters report questioning from feds using “unmarked cars”
The Oregon Department of Justice lawsuit claims that federal officers using “unmarked cars” to spirit away and question suspected antifa members violated their civil rights. Taking the word of the suspected antifa terrorist Mark Pettibone, the attorney general accuses the federal agencies of not having probable cause to stop him in his black bloc attire in the middle of the night.
The DOJ lawsuit specifically highlighted the case of Mark Pettibone, a demonstrator who was snatched off the street by federal officers in the early hours of July 16, put into a van, and brought to the federal courthouse.
“On information and belief, defendants did not have a warrant to seize Pettibone or the other citizens who have been detained, and will continue to seize individuals off the street without a warrant, in the absence of an injunction,” the lawsuit reads.
Furthermore, the AG, Ellen Rosenblum, contends that because the antifa and BLM rioters don’t know what specific agency the federal cops are from, which the Border Patrol disputes, it leaves the terrorists subject to kidnapping from bad actors who may pretend to be police. She really said that.
Due to both federal agents and their vehicles being unmarked, the lawsuit states that Oregonians could be at risk of kidnapping by “militias and other civilian ‘volunteers’ taking it onto themselves to pull peaceful protesters into their cars, in a manner that resembles the federal actions described…”
Rioters get help from Oregon ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon’s interim legal director, Kelly Simon, asks for federal police to be rounded up and thrown out of the City of Portland.
“These federal agents must be stopped and removed from our city,” Simon added. “We will continue to bring the full fire power of the ACLU to bear until this lawless policing ends.”
“This is a fight to save our democracy,” Kelly Simon, interim legal director with the ACLU of Oregon, said in a statement. “Under the direction of the Trump administration, federal agents are terrorizing the community, risking lives, and brutally attacking protesters demonstrating against police brutality.
It should be noted here that the ACLU has been asked but has never lifted a finger to help victims of antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters’ violence, such as journalists Michael Strickland or Andy Ngo.
[GRAPHIC VIDEO] Portland Rioters Threaten Man They Kicked In the Head – 'Do Not Protest Against Black Lives' https://t.co/CKVKrmF5b2
— Victoria Taft (@VictoriaTaft) May 31, 2020
The U.S. Attorney for Oregon has ordered an investigation into the actions of federal officers while arresting antifa.
President Trump has been roundly criticized for considering sending in federal military troops to put down insurrections in cities experiencing riots. Trump can do that under the U.S. Constitution. In some cases, however, the governor would have to ask for help from federal troops.
Trump sends cops to protect federal buildings from rioters
Not so with law enforcement. The president has taken an oath to follow the U.S. Constitution, which provides certain inalienable rights to citizens. The first order of business for any elected official is to keep the people secure. That’s their job. The Oregon governor, AG, and mayor have not done that. They’ve left antifa and other allied rioters to run the streets, “direct traffic,” inflict beatings, and deprive people of their civil rights. The officials have not protected the citizens’ civil rights at all. Now these same people go to court accusing the Trump administration of failing to uphold antifa’s civil rights.
Former federal prosecutor and legal analyst Andy McCarthy says federal law enforcement “doesn’t need to be invited by the state.”
Law enforcement is not a situation where the president needs to be or the feds need to be invited by the state. Law enforcement is a separate federal responsibility, whether the feds can act or not does not have anything to do at all with whether the states will work cooperatively with them or invite them in, it’s solely a function of whether Congress has enacted criminal statues based on some federal constitutional responsibility. If there are such laws, then the president takes an oath to faithfully execute the laws, so he has a separate obligation of his own to enforce federal law, he doesn’t have to be asked to do it or invited to do it.
[…]
The laws that allow the feds to get into criminal investigations basically fall into three big categories.
…crimes that happen on territory that is not territory, even if it’s within the borders of a state,
…there are crimes that are committed against federal officers or foreign officials.
…crimes as to which Congress has cited there is a federal interest.
McCarthy states that the last category has grown more “elastic” since the FDR administration began stretching the bounds of the Commerce Clause. Drugs, guns, terrorism, explosives, and racketeering (RICO) statutes come under this category. Indeed, U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr has brought charges against suspected antifa and Black Lives Matter terrorists for crossing state lines to loot, commit arson, and riot.
Antifa rioters are a “terrorist” organization
President Trump has labeled antifa and MS-13 terrorist organizations.
Federal officers have suffered injuries at the hands of antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters, the latest of which involved a rioter hitting an officer on the head with a hammer. And the feds have the right, indeed the duty, to investigate crimes on federal property, in Portland’s case, the federal buildings which rioters have attacked, vandalized, and defaced.
Federal officers, like any other sworn officers, need to have probable cause to perform an arrest, especially if there are exigent circumstances. Portland’s nightly rioting would seem to qualify.
One of the reputed leaders of Rose City Antifa, Luis Marquez, says his terrorists are ready for the federal officers.
Ha ha ha we ready federales
— leftist (@luistheleftist) July 18, 2020
The last time we saw Luis he had crossed state lines to Seattle where he was seen on video committing acts of violence at CHOP.
Oregon governor wanted “swift” action from feds – in 2016
The Oregon Democrats’ response to the antifa and BLM violence for nearly 50 days starkly contrasts with their reaction to the 40-day “occupation” of a rural federal wildlife refuge in Oregon in 2016. Then, Governor Kate Brown demanded the Obama administration do something “swiftly” and “without further delay” when the owners of the Hammond Ranch were thrown off grazing lands for conducting a controlled burn, charged with arson, and took over the refuge in retaliation.
In a letter to the country’s top law enforcement officials, Gov. Kate Brown pressed for “swift resolution” of the wildlife refuge occupation outside Burns.
Brown also wrote President Obama calling for action “without further delay.”
Brown also wrote then-FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch claiming that every day “tensions are increasing exponentially” in Harney County.
“While it is easy to assume that an occupation in such a remote location does not threaten public safety and does not harm any victims, that perception is far from accurate,” the governor wrote.
Harney County ain’t Portland. At Brown’s behest, Lynch sent officers. One of the occupiers, Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, was shot and killed by a state cop. The entire fiasco was rife with prosecutorial misconduct and environmentalist zeal. Eventually, President Trump gave the Hammonds pardons after they’d served time in prison.
The Hammonds and their buddies were conservative ranchers who liked guns and Brown called out the feds.
Antifa is her base.
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