ICE agents are making Portland worse, not better, according to local law enforcement.
Portland Police Commander Franz Schoening testified in court Wednesday that federal officers had escalated a No Kings protest in the city on October 18—not because of crowd violence, but because one of their own had accidentally shot tear gas onto the roof of an ICE facility, reported Politico’s Kyle Cheney.
That day, federal officers tried to use a launcher to fire tear gas at protesters occupying the ICE headquarters’ driveway. But they missed, and instead sent a can flying onto the roof of the building, where more federal officers were stationed. Those officers mistook the friendly fire for an attack by the protesters, and retaliated by firing tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd, ultimately hurting local law enforcement in the process, according to Schoening.
“The types and amounts of force being used by federal officers is disproportionate to the level of criminal conduct or violence we’re seeing down there,” Schoening said during the first day of a federal trial deliberating the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard to the supposedly besieged city.
The trial, before the U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, is the first instance in which a court weighs in on whether a protest at an immigration facility constitutes a rebellion. Oregon accused the White House in a 41-page legal complaint of having “trampled” the U.S. Constitution by federalizing Portland’s law enforcement, arguing that Donald Trump had legitimately threatened Portland’s peace by “inciting a public outcry.”
Schoening recalled that the city’s anti-ICE protests had been mild in September, but ramped up once Trump got the troops involved.
Rather than rely on data before commanding the National Guard across the country, Trump decided last month to target Rose City after he claimed he witnessed its “destruction” while “watching television.” He then directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to “provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland” in order to defend ICE and his immigration agenda, authorizing the use of “full force.”
Read more about tear gas use:
Progressive Democratic congressional candidate and former journalist Kat Abughazaleh was indicted by the Justice Department Wednesday for allegedly preventing a federal officer from “discharging the duties of his office” at the Broadview ICE detention center near Chicago.
Abughazaleh and five others are accused of blocking a Department of Homeland Security vehicle from carrying out deportations, banging and scratching on the window.
“It was further part of the conspiracy that Abughazaleh joined the crowd at the front of the Government Vehicle, and with her hands on the hood braced her body and hands against the vehicle while remaining directly in the path of the vehicle, hindering and impeding Agent A and the vehicle from proceeding to the BSSA,” the court documents read. “[Abughazaleh] forcibly impeded, intimidated, and interfered with an officer of the United States.”
Abughazaleh,