The following is a long read but well worth your time. The author is a man of wisdom, integrity and insightful. He has gone to work every day during this tumultuous time in Portland. We owe him a debt of gratitude.
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Thanks to all my friends and family who have reached out to me and are concerned about what is going on in downtown Portland. For those who don’t know, I work at the Federal Courthouse in Portland. What is going on here is not what is being portrayed in the media and I want to set the record straight as to what reality is and what I have had to endure.
As I walk the streets of downtown Portland I wonder if it would be better to change its name to Beirut. Destruction everywhere. Businesses boarded up and refusing to open until the chaos is over. Fires and vandalism have destroyed most of the garbage cans, dumpsters, parking meters, business signs, windows, statues, water fountains and anything else in sight. The only thing that is missing are the homeless people. They have fled the chaos because they can’t sleep and are in fear for their personal safety. The public buildings that have served as a point of pride to this city have been desecrated, one of which is the Federal Courthouse.
At the time of this writing all three of the front entrance doors along with adjacent windows have been smashed. These windows are very thick and durable. Several other windows around the building have been broken by wrist rockets shooting large ball bearings, pellet guns or suspected gunfire. The complete circumference of the building is plastered with an unbelievable amount of graffiti on unique stonework that may not be able to be removed and the longer it stays on the tougher it will be to remove. All of the current main floor windows are boarded up with plywood that has been pealed back on occasion to allow windows to be damaged, lighted material to be thrown in or to use the plywood to set a bonfire that destroyed the 110 year old Elk Fountain. All of the access doors have been vandalized or damaged beyond use. Security cameras have been damaged or destroyed. The building has been encircled with a temporary embassy style security fence that has been breached several times in the last couple of days. Arriving to work one can see dump truck loads of garbage thrown over the fence and numerous ash piles where items have been burned. Rocks, bricks, frozen water bottles, cans of food that were thrown at officers the night before are strewn about. Upon entering the building for work, employees have to wade through piles of garbage, human and animal feces, and buckets of urine in the doorways. Unventilated areas retain the odor of CS Gas throughout the day and security officers have to stand outside the entrance to avoid coughing and sneezing from the left over residue. Employees have been videoed, license plates written down,confronted with verbal harassment and threats to both us and our families, demands for personal identifying information,followed from work and some reports have come in about vandalized vehicles at our homes. Metal spikes have been used in an effort to puncture tires of employees or federal vehicles. It is suspected that intelligence files are being compiled on us. When I leave the courthouse I take different routes to my transportation home constantly looking to see if I am being followed.
With all of this happening, the Department Heads and Judges felt it necessary to protect themselves and their staffs by first requesting assistance from local authorities who did little to protect the people and buildings that are within their jurisdictions. With this lack of local concern the last ditch effort was to make a request to Washington DC for federal help. There are currently over 100 federal law enforcement officers officers from multiple federal departments in Portland at this time to protect federal property, federal employees and to perform federal law enforcement functions.
Why is this happening? It is not the BLM movement. It is the total breakdown of leadership in Portland and the State Capital who have allowed a highly organized anarchist element that has been in Portland for years which infiltrates peaceful groups to roam freely with little or no restraint. Governor Brown and the Portland City Counsel have demanded the federal officers leave the city while directing local law enforcement to stop all coordination and assistance of federal law enforcement. I find it ludicrous that people are demanding to have these officers removed or their tactics modified at the same courthouse that is under siege from the same judges whose own safety and staffs safety is benefiting from the presence of those officers. Kate and Ted. I have been a Portland area resident for longer than you’ve been alive. You have failed to protect me and my other Oregon coworkers. That is your SWORN responsibility!!!
Let me transition to the DISHONESTY of the media.
It is DISHONEST to say that these federal officers are troops, Gestapo, storm troopers, or paramilitary forces dressed in military camouflage. These law enforcement officers are from multiple federal agencies and are wearing their actual duty uniforms plus some added protective gear for obvious reasons. Some agencies like Border Patrol do wear camouflage uniforms which are practical for their work environment.
It is DISHONEST to portray these officers of lacking coordination and crowd control skills. They have had 10 times the crowd control training that I ever had.
It is DISHONEST to say officers are indiscriminately taking people off the streets to detain them illegally. As law enforcement officers they can seize and detain people who have committed crimes after the fact. If a team of officers see someone who appears to be a person who committed a criminal act the day before, they can stop and detain that person and in the case of the recent reports in the media, can contact them and move them away from the crowd that they have just left for their and the detainees safety. It is unknown at this time if they contacted the actual suspect or mistook them for the actual suspect. You have to admit that wearing dark clothing at night with masking would make it difficult for anyone to recognize somebody from a distance.
It is DISHONEST to say that these officers are using overly aggressive tactics and using excessive force. They are stationed inside the courthouse and there rules of engagement are to protect the federal courthouse and themselves if attacked. They only exit the building when attempts are made to breach or damage the building and exclusively stay on that property unless there are specific threats to them outside the perimeter that need to be addressed. And lets face it. Tear gas has been around for decades and should be of no surprise that it is being used for crowd control and officer safety,pandemic or no pandemic.
It is DISHONEST to say that media and legal observers are being targeted for arrest. When a crowd is told to disperse, tear gas has been deployed, and a moving skirmish line has been established, anybody in the path is liable for their own reasons to not comply with orders to disperse. Common sense would say that if there has been tear gas usage every night for 2 months, the next night should result in the same response.
It is DISHONEST to represent Mr Navy as an unsuspecting victim. He heard the orders for the crowd to disperse. He saw the use of tear gas. He saw the approaching skirmish line of officers coming and he chose to stand firm to break that skirmish line when everybody else was retreating. Did he really expect to have a “CONVERSATION” with the approaching officers? I think we are smarter than that. If you stand in the path of a freight train, don’t be surprised if you get hit.
It is DISHONEST to describe what is happening is a “Peaceful Protest” when so much destruction is left behind as a result. I am a Baby Boomer who grew up seeing Martin Luther King Jr marching, sit-ins and other Ghandi-like tactics that were peaceful and effective. Do Peaceful Protestors bring such items to a protest as; rocks, bricks, cans of food, frozen bottles of water, eggs, spray paint, graffiti pens, wrist rockets (hunting-style slingshots), large ballbearings, large marbles, pellet guns, traffic flares, hockey sticks, leaf blowers, commercial grade fireworks, shields, axes, sledgehammers, pry bars, power cutting tools, high powered laser pointers (can burn out a retina in a flash), bottles of flammable liquid, and the list goes on. Do Peaceful Protestors violently act in ways that have injured multiple federal police officers.
It is DISHONEST to portray the federal officers as the BAD GUYS. They have chosen a career to serve and protect the people and property of their cities, states and nation honorably and with diligence.
How can anybody with any common sense think it is OK to destroy a federal courthouse and attack our law enforcement officers??
Chew on that for a while.
“We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent people.” ― George Orwell
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Sat Aug 22, 2020 1:20 pm (Last edited: Sat Aug 22, 2020 1:22 pm)
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