As protests erupted in May following the police killing of George Floyd, Donald Trump vowed that his government would “step in and do what has to be done.” It was an ominous threat, and he made good on it a few days later: As demonstrators in D.C. demanded justice, Attorney General William Barr “[flooded] the zone” with heavily-armed federal law enforcement. The administration’s authoritarian crackdown was disturbing enough. But it was made all the more disconcerting by the fact that it was executed by unidentified police in riot gear.
A similar scene has been playing out in Portland. Federal officials, reportedly wearing camouflage and in unmarked vehicles, have engaged in similar tactics since the president deployed them to the city this month. During a protest Saturday, 26-year-old demonstrator Donavan La Bella was shot in the head with what appeared to be an impact munition, leaving him severely injured. Federal officials, who have continued to fire munitions and tear gas at crowds, have also reportedly begun to seize protesters. On Wednesday, Mark Pettibone, a 29-year-old demonstrator, said he was grabbed off the street by men in military uniforms as he left a peaceful protest, taken by an unmarked gray van to a federal courthouse, and detained without being told why, being charged him with a crime, or being provided with a record of his arrest before he was let go. “I was terrified,” he told the Washington Post.
These tactics have alarmed observers. “Usually when we see people in unmarked cars forcibly grab someone off the street we call it kidnapping—what is happening now in Portland should concern everyone in the US,” the ACLU said in a statement Friday. “These actions are flat-out unconstitutional and will not go unanswered.” Democrats have chimed in. After Barr sicced federal law enforcement on protesters in Washington last month, Nancy Pelosi demanded they be identified. “The practice of officers operating with full anonymity undermines accountability, ignites government distrust and suspicion, and is counter to the principle of procedural justice and legitimacy during this precarious moment in our nation’s history,” she wrote. And on Thursday, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden lashed out at Trump and Chad Wolf, the acting Homeland Security secretary, for deploying “secret police” against Americans. “Trump and [Wolf] are weaponizing the DHS as their own occupying army to provoke violence on the streets of my hometown because they think it plays well with right-wing media,” he tweeted.
Local officials in Portland have also criticized the federal response. Mayor Ted Wheeler described the feds’ conduct as “irresponsible,” and Governor Kate Brown called it a “blatant abuse of power.” “I am proud to be among the loud chorus of elected officials calling for the federal troops in Portland’s streets to go home,” City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty said in a statement Sunday. “Their presence here has escalated tensions and put countless Portlanders exercising their First Amendment rights in greater danger.” But some in the city have warned that the problem could expand outward. “I think Portland is a test case,” Zakir Khan of the Oregon chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations told the Post. “They want to see what they can get away with before launching into other parts of the country.”
The administration has given good reason to be worried. On Monday, two days after police shot La Bella in the head, Trump praised federal law enforcement’s actions in Portland and threatened to “take over” liberal cities. “We’ve done a great job in Portland,” Trump said in a press conference. “Portland was totally out of control, and they went in, and I guess we have many people right now in jail. We very much quelled it, and if it starts again, we’ll quell it again very easily. It’s not hard to do, if you know what you’re doing.” On Friday, amid growing national outrage over the crackdown in Portland, Wolf defended the DHS response in a series of tweets calling demonstrators “anarchists.” “We will never surrender to violent extremists on my watch,” he wrote. “We will prevail.”
More Great Stories From Vanity Fair
— As Chaos Engulfs Trump Campaign, Loyalists Look For the Next Thing
— In Mary Trump’s New Book, a Conclusive Diagnosis of Donald Trump’s Psychopathology
— For Some on Wall Street Beating Trump Is More Important Than Money
— Bill Barr Is Running an October-Surprise Factory at Justice
— Bari Weiss Makes Her Bid for Woke-Wars Martyrdom
— Inside the Cult of Trump, His Rallies Are Church and He Is the Gospel
— From the Archive: Untangling the Symbiosis of Donald Trump and Roy Cohn
Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hive newsletter and never miss a story.