A story at The Oregonian by K. Rambo zeroes in on questions crucial to understanding both the abuses committed by Portland police over the last several weeks, and the violence perpetrated by federal agents deployed here more recently. Despite assertions by both the Portland Police Bureau and Mayor Ted Wheeler (who acts as police commissioner) that there has been no coordination between the PPB and federal agents, and that the police do not take direction from the feds, the article documents multiple instances of the police and federal units appearing to act in coordinated fashion against demonstrators. This raises the question of whether the Portland police are either lying to the public, or are acting in a way in which the distinction between active versus de facto coordination with the feds is a meaningless distinction. As recently as last night, “Portland police and federal officers marched in tandem toward hundreds of Portlanders” after the PPB declared a demonstration to be unlawful.
As the article notes, the federal agents are not bound by the same restrictions on use of force as the local police (for instance, a restraining order keeps the PPB from deploying tear gas except in extreme cases). It would seem that if the PPB is taking advantage of things like federal use of tear gas for their own operations, they are violating the spirit and possibly the letter of the restrictions placed on them. As the director of Portland’s Independent Police Review put it, “We can’t have the feds doing PPB’s dirty work and being able to get away with it because they don’t have any oversight.”
The article also notes that when acting Homeland Security secretary Chad Wolf was in town last week, he did not invite Mayor Ted Wheeler to a meeting, yet did find time to meet with the president of the Portland Police Association — a fact noted by Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who issued a statement that “We know Portland Police are collaborating with this federal occupying force.” The Oregonian article notes that within hours of her statement, the PPB indicated that beginning Saturday night, “the Federal Protective Service will not work in the Portland Police incident command center.” The fact that until this point the FPS has done so, and “how it does not constitute tactical coordination,” as The Oregonian points out, are items that remain unanswered.