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“A Bridge Too Far”
On Friday a federal judge denied the request of the Attorney General for the State of Oregon to limit the response of federal law enforcement officers in their efforts to protect the federal courthouse in Portland.
Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum had urged the judge to bar federal officers from engaging in “unconstitutional police state-type tactics,” alleging they have violated the rights of protesters to exercise free expression and assembly, be free from unreasonable search and seizure and receive due process.
The attorney general and her lawyers referenced two incidents last week by men in camouflage fatigues who stopped 29-year-old Michael Pettibone on a downtown street about 2 a.m. on July 15, placed him in an unmarked van and took him to the federal courthouse for questioning. Another person was shown the next day on a widely circulated social media video being led away to an unmarked dark van by men in camouflage, later identified as Border Patrol officers.
The real objective of the state’s arguments was to end the federal response to the defense of the courthouse. The state and the city government will not make the distinction between lawful protestors and rioters. They are not alone in their failure to make the distinction between protected speech and criminal acts. The ACLU, media, and other advocacy groups, to include members of the Senate, and the House will not say, rioters.
The most specious argument from the state was a hypothetical situation that could occur, a conspiracy theory.
Attorney Sheila Potter, deputy chief trial counsel in the Attorney General’s Office, had argued that secretive maneuvers by federal officers make other protesters fear they’ll be grabbed off the city’s streets. They create a chilling effect on free speech and assembly and could cause people masquerading as federal agents to spirit people away, she said.
But Mosman wasn’t convinced, calling the state’s suggestion that seizures by law enforcement could lead to kidnappings by private parties “a bridge too far.”
“The injury the state asserts is entirely conjectural. First, the state candidly admits that it does not have a shred of evidence that counter-protesters have ever, anywhere, kidnapped a protester or anyone associated with protests,” he wrote. “Second, the asserted interest rests on an utterly implausible inference. The State’s reasoning is that counter-protesters, once they learn of seizures of protesters by federal agents, will dress up like police and go out on private missions to kidnap protesters. This despite the fact that such kidnappings are Measure 11 felonies in Oregon, punishable by mandatory minimum sentences of up to 70-90 months in prison.”
The only sane government agencies left in the Portland area are the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, the Portland Police Bureau, and federal law enforcement. Local, and state officials are doing their best to rid themselves of that impediment to insanity.
Published in Policing
BA-WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
They can’t do this to our great Mayor and our valiant protestors!
They are denying them their inalienable Constitutional rights to riot, cause mayhem and hurt people. What?
This is an outrage. Oregon should immediately secede from the Union. That’l show em!
Shortly after publishing this post, Ricochet member @dougwatt was arrested by two federal officers in camouflage, with patches identifying them as United States Grammar Police. As the two stuffed him into an unmarked van, witnesses heard them remark, “‘Far’ is not a verb.”
But, but…we went to Federal Court! We demand you agree with us! We are the cool people. How dare you not agree with us? Okay then, we’ll just keep trying to destroy your federal building. It is our right. We’re pretty sure.
I think your comment goes too far.
My gosh, there is a sane judge in Portland! How did that happen?! I hope the judge has bodyguards . . .
I suspect half of the Marshal Service is running interference for him. He’s on the endangered list for sure.
If the Feds can’t defend federal property in town, why would they be able to defend military installations? How could they be able to?
It shouldn’t be notable that a Federal judge does his or her job. It is, but it shouldn’t be.
Last night BLM deployed thousands of personnel into residential areas. Throughout the world, thousands meant you were dealing in armies until Napoleon, and it reflects a point well past where National Guard would historically be called in. Portland and Seattle continue to thank them for their demands and kerchunk through them while they burn and loot and assault law enforcement and would you like fries with that. The cities apologies for not including a vegetarian selection in the box lunches they provided CHAZ/CHOP were priceless.
That whole imminent tsunami wipes out the Pacific northwest thing? Well, act of God. Who am I to speak against an act of God. It’s not like I’m praying for it.
The feds haven’t brought serious resources to bear, yet. The opposition created this mess thinking they could lay the blame on Trump who would stupidly overreact and try to actually protect people, the naive fool. A plan so cunning you could put ears and a tail on it and call it a weasel. And the media in these cities are running out of locations where, if they shoot at just the right angle, you can’t see the plywood or the burned out storefronts or the smoke rising over the skyline. Trump could shut this down using Obama’s EPA militarily equipped storm troopers just based on the environmental damage to the cities.
Portland Mayor Wheeler getting his worthless head bonked by a rioter’s peacefully thrown bottle and tear gassed has been the highlight. And, of course, he blamed Trump. There are some wonderful campaign ads in the offing.
Are you sure you’re not really @jameslileks ?
You flatter me, sir. The man in the mustard muscle shirt is unparalleled in his mastery of Adderisms. I count myself honored to share a planet with the man.
#MeToo.
So the Oregon Attorney General seems to think it should be legally impermissible for officers not wearing traditional police uniforms to detain suspects and it is also wrong for those officers to use unmarked vehicles to transport detainees.
Does she therefore also think it legally impermissible for plainclothes police detectives to make arrests, or to transport an arrestee in the unmarked police car that detectives often use? If so, I’d bet there are a bunch of arrests made over the years by Oregon police agencies that might be challenged under such a principle.
That’s all part of the plan.
Always applaud the proper use of #MeToo.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Here’s the next phase:
I (sort of) understand the desire to fight with the federal government (it provides self-aggrandizing publicity), but does she really want to fight with the local district attorneys within Oregon, many of whom are not likely to be on board the “enforcing the law is a bad idea” train, and who are about to get a bunch of “motions to dismiss charges”?
Any local DA who doesn’t fall in line will probably face very well funded opposition.
I’ve done prison ministry. We don’t leave our pencils on the table unattended when we are inside because of the security implications. Two of my residents came from a bloc that saw one inmate kill four others and injure several more in a few seconds with nothing more than a small, crude edges weapon. These guys get a bus ticket to anywhere when they get out, and Wheeler, et.al. has the welcome mat out. Durkan, too, for that matter. De Blasio is being very welcoming, now that I think of it.
Of course! They want all those criminals to be Dem voters!
Two of my residents came from a bloc that saw one inmate kill four others and injure several more in a few seconds with nothing more than a small, crude edges weapon. These guys get a bus ticket to anywhere when they get out, and Wheeler, et.al. has the welcome mat out. Durkan, too, for that matter. De Blasio is being very welcoming, now that I think of it.
Yup.
If you want to see how it is done watch some of the later episodes of Sons of Anarchy.
This is a very dangerous situation that the Left is purposely escalating to wholesale violence against the Public.
That interpretation only applies to “storm troopers” (to quote Nancy P.) sent by Trump to inhibit the rioters’ free and fun exercise of their rights as Oregonians.
Consider. These federal judges aren’t going to stop federal law enforcement from protecting them. If I were the president, if a federal judge put a restraining order on them, I would pull them all out, and let the mob have those courthouses and maybe those judges.
Those judges probably know that’s a distinct possibility.