Portland protesters say federal officers in unmarked vans are detaining them
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
We urgently need a federal statute to require that armed federal agents wear prominent identification. Even just a number that we can lookup for the details.
Cops with no accountability are how we got in this mess and this anonymity amounts to more of the same.
The identity may be pseudoanonymous but the agency must be able to link it back to the individuals.
I would make exceptions for undercover officers who are discovered or who choose to break cover, and I would make exceptions for circumstances beyond their control. (You don't cease to be a cop because someone destroyed your identification in the incident etc.)
Likewise, I would like to see their powers go away if they aren't filming, likewise with an exception for something that happened during the incident. (But turning off one's camera is voluntary, it doesn't count unless you did it under duress.)
Source: https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_57c9b648e4b06c750dd9cd6f
Also, in practice, law is very subjective and frequently doesn't supply any prior constraint against government actors, only recourse after-the-fact.
I could not have been truer and damn ... the system is not faring well.
Implement Jim Crow laws and prevent Black people from voting under the guise of "states' rights".
Invade a nation that does not threaten us in order to "liberate their people" and "spread democracy".
Encourage paramilitaries to intimidate peaceful protesters with weapons of war to "protect property and the rule of law".
And now send heavily armed mercenaries or federal agents into cities, with no identification and no accountability, against the will of local leaders, to kidnap citizens from the streets to "protect federal property".
The US didn't invade Iraq to "liberate its people", and federal thugs aren't abducting people from the streets to "protect federal property".
Those are lies and transparent pretexts.
In non-fascist politics, the justifications aren't dishonest pretexts. For example, when non-fascist Roosevelt established Social Security, the stated reason was to safeguard "against the hazards and vicissitudes of life".
That was not a lie or a pretext. It was true, and that's the difference.
Not that we have any reason to take CPB for their word on what they say about these events, after the fact.
We need to follow up with the arrests and make sure due process is being followed. If you're inciting violence or destroying property, you need to face justice. If you're assembling peacefully, we need to monitore for/end the abuse of power.
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/news/read.cfm?id=25099...
https://theintercept.com/2017/05/27/leaked-documents-reveal-...
You'd think that the same people that are incredibly pro-freedom would see this as a massive assault on someone's rights and yet, well.
I know the knee-jerk reaction to this statement is that rioting isn't peaceful protest, and you'd be absolutely right.
But the media (especially on the right) has blown the number and severity of riots completely out of proportion, because riots are sensational. They're exciting and get a lot of eyeballs watching their broadcasts and reading their articles. They've successfully convinced half the country that the riots significantly outnumber the peaceful protests.
This focus has made it impossible for any change to occur, because they defend the unjust actions of the police. You can point to this massive list of over 200 videos showing police brutality during the protests [0], and they will respond with "BUT THE RIOTS!", as if that excuses any of it.
[0] https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266751520055459847
Why would you assume they haven't committed a crime? The camouflaged cops are clearly targeting individuals, not kettling up whole groups of peaceful protesters. Also, police brutality doesn't excuse serious crimes. We can do something about both at the same time.
I don't presume guilt (this is America, after all), but I rather suspect the Federales have some reason to arrest some but not others, and that reason might be things like arson, assault, or other serious crimes.
I'm not arguing that the media have pumped some things up to get ratings, but it's undeniable there have been criminal acts in and around legitimate protesters, perpetrated by bad actors, and it's not unreasonable to think perhaps the Feds have some evidence of wrongdoing by virtue of the targeted nature of the arrests.
> I don't presume guilt (this is America, after all)
These two lines are explicitly at odds. You said you don't presume guilt, but you presumed the people the cops are picking up have committed a crime. You have presumed guilt.
It doesn't mean that you can't arrest people suspected of a crime. That's how arrests work, FYI.
Because "Innocent until proven guilty" is supposed to be a ideal in the USA.
Also, the people being kidnapped are often being released with no charges. Source: https://www.opb.org/news/article/federal-law-enforcement-unm...
> I don't presume guilt (this is America, after all), but I rather suspect the Federales have some reason to arrest some but not others, and that reason might be things like arson, assault, or other serious crimes.
The first 4 words of this statement don't work with the rest of the sentence. You claim to not presume guilt, then essentially claim that they must be guilty or else why would they be arrested?
Despite how much unwarranted police brutality is going on, you're continuing to defend the authorities.
You are part of the problem.
That doesn't make what's happening super awesome, but OTOH it's not like these are like the Russian Little Green Men in Ukraine, operating without any visible affiliation whatsoever.
If having a POLICE patch is a license to commit violence without the target having a right to self-defense, that’s...a problem.
> OTOH it's not like these are like the Russian Little Green Men in Ukraine, operating without any visible affiliation whatsoever.
It's exactly like that: LGM were armed troops that wore generic military-style fatigues with no identification with a specific accountable organization, though behavior and common sense linked them on some level to the Russian governmwnr. These armed troops wear generic law-enforcement style gear with no identification with a specific accountable organization, though behavior and common sense link them to the US federal government. It's exactly the same thing, except that it's internal unaccountable repression and not an external not-quite-plausibly-deniable invasion.
I suppose so, but it's currently within the law to do so. In fact, the police don't always have to identify themselves as the police in certain exigent circumstances (!). It's also a common myth that universally the police must identify themselves personally and give a badge number. That's up to department policy.
I support reform in these cases, at the least requiring officers to wear patches that uniquely identifies them ("X25" or something) for later use in court. That said, what we are seeing is within the bounds of the law today.
>It's exactly the same thing
No, it really isn't. Men in civilian clothing or blank fatigues blowing things up with zero identification is indeed distinguishable from men in uniform with American flag and POLICE patches.
How so?
https://i.redd.it/b6xjl7nugoq41.jpg
The LGM had no patches, no flags, nothing to indicate to a reasonable observer where they were from or what authority they might have. This was more pronounced with LGM in civilian clothing:
https://i.redd.it/2sukgo8bjjl41.png
I'm not a giant fan of the cammies. I think a solid color would suffice for all but snipers and it looks less militaristic. But that doesn't negate the fact that all of the videos show men with POLICE patches in the middle of their plate carriers and American flags on their uniforms.
Based on the comments here, it is difficult for these people. Perhaps they are not reasonable observers?
The DHS secretary visited Portland yesterday, this is what he saw that has prompted him to send in these forces: pictures of graffiti [1].
For that he labeled these are violent extremists and violent anarchists. And he has labeled these unidentified units abducting people as our valiant men and women in uniform and patriots. This is war on terror language used in our country, on our streets.
On Wednesday Trump, with AG Barr next to him named other "blue cities" in addition to Portland: Seattle, Minneapolis, and Chicago.
If this chills you and you don't want to see it progress, call your representatives and ask them to intervene to stop this.
I was able to upvote it just now, though it's still in the gray.
I have noticed that a minority of comments seem to be "locked" against voting for a certain period of time. I have previously found unvotable comments like yours, spotted them again hours later, and found that voting worked again.
I haven't been able to spot any common patterns in these temporarily unvotable comments. I wonder if there is some sort of cooldown timer on voting for comments that have received heavy voting in both directions. I'm not entirely satisfied with that guess, because IIRC some unvotable comments I have encountered in the past appear to be anodyne and unlikely to have attracted prior vote controversy.
There's also a limit on how frequently your votes will affect another user, but I hadn't voted on any of your other comments in the past day.
I've been wondering if that's a good approach, but I mostly feel that it's a good principle to uphold the HN rules over whatever comment I might agree with, so I downvote comments that include complaints.
ORS 162.367:
(1) A person commits the crime of criminal impersonation of a peace officer if the person, with the intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud another person, uses false law enforcement identification or wears a law enforcement uniform to give the impression that the person is a peace officer and does an act in that assumed character. (2) Criminal impersonation of a peace officer is a Class C felony. ... (3) As used in this section: ... Law enforcement uniform” means clothing bearing words such as “police,” “sheriff,” “state trooper” or “law enforcement,” or clothing that is an official uniform or substantially similar to an official uniform of a law enforcement unit that would make it reasonably likely that a person would believe that the wearer is a peace officer. [1993 c.243 §2; 2005 c.259 §1]
ORS 133.005:
(3) “Peace officer” means: (a) A member of the Oregon State Police; (b) A sheriff, constable, marshal, municipal police officer or reserve officer or a police officer commissioned by a university under ORS 352.121 (University police departments and officers) or 353.125 (Creation of police department and commission of police officers); (c) An investigator of a district attorney’s office if the investigator is or has been certified as a peace officer in this or any other state; (d) An investigator of the Criminal Justice Division of the Department of Justice of the State of Oregon; (e) A humane special agent as defined in ORS 181A.345 (Humane special agents to enforce animal welfare laws under direction of law enforcement agency); (f) A regulatory specialist exercising authority described in ORS 471.775 (Service of subpoenas) (2); (g) An authorized tribal police officer as defined in ORS 181A.680 (Definitions for ORS 181A.680 to 181A.692); or (h) A judicial marshal appointed under ORS 1.177 (State plan for security, emergency preparedness and business continuity for court facilities) who is trained pursuant to ORS 181A.540 (Certification of judicial marshals).
There is a separate definition of "Federal Officer." A Federal Officer is not allowed to wear clothing bearing the word "Police", because they are not a police officer.
Impersonating a police officer is a class C felony, carrying a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
A man claims that he was arrested "as he was walking home from a peaceful protest" and taken to the courthouse in an unmarked vehicle. This strikes me as unlikely to be the full story, but it is presented as the gospel truth. The entire thing is based on the word of this guy. What did the Washington Post do to verify the truth of this story? Anything?
The WaPo article refrences Oregon Public Broadcasting as a source, and their article[0] contains more allegations:
> Federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least July 14.
and
> Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation of why they are being arrested, and driving off.
Neither article links to these videos. So, in terms of supporting evidence, we're left with the word of one man and a perfectly credulous article written in a local publication.
Has anyone seen one of these videos?
[0]https://www.opb.org/news/article/federal-law-enforcement-unm...
https://twitter.com/matcha_chai/status/1283328232033411072
Is the one I've seen going around