WATCH: Badgeless Federal Officers Force Portland Protesters into Unmarked Vehicles
Badgeless federal officers rounded up protesters in Portland, OR on Thursday night and forced them into unmarked vehicles, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting News.
Protesters were demonstrating outside of Multnomah County Justice Center and the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse when several were detained by the officers and put into the unmarked minivans.
The Nation journalist Jeet Heer took to Twitter to share a video of one citizen’s arrest, explaining, “Mysterious Badgeless federal officers rounding up citizens without reading them their rights and putting them in unmarked vans kind of puts the whole “cancel culture” thing into perspective.”
Mysterious, Badgeless federal officers rounding up citizens without reading them their rights and putting them in unmarked vans kind of puts the whole “cancel culture” thing into perspective. https://t.co/0lxR2p5Mu2
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) July 17, 2020
Onlookers in the video can be heard both promising the detainee that they will “get [him] out” and telling the officers that this is a violation of the protester’s rights.
“I see guys in camo,” Conner O’Shea told OPB. “Four or five of them pop out, open the door and it was just like, ‘Oh sh*t. I don’t know who you are or what you want with us.’”
Mark Pettibone, who was protesting with O’Shea claims he was “tossed into the van” after the officers pulled his hat over his face to block his vision.
Pettibone claimed he was put into a cell and later read his Miranda Rights but was never told why he was being arrested. He was released roughly 90 minutes later, after he declined to speak and asked for a lawyer, and he did not receive any record of his arrest.
According to OPB, federal officers have been patrolling Portland throughout the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests:
Officers from the U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group and Customs and Border Protection’s BORTAC, have been sent to Portland to protect federal property during the recent protests against racism and police brutality. But interviews conducted by OPB show officers are also detaining people on Portland streets who aren’t near federal property, nor is it clear that all of the people being arrested have engaged in criminal activity. Demonstrators like O’Shea and Pettibone said they think they were targeted by federal officers for simply wearing black clothing in the area of the demonstration.
“It’s like stop and frisk meets Guantanamo Bay,” said attorney Juan Chavez, director of the civil rights project at the Oregon Justice Resource Center. “It sounds more like abduction. It sounds like they’re kidnapping people off the streets.”
