PORTLAND — Two Oregon state lawmakers, the Western States Center, Inc., a Portland church and a Portland attorney have joined to sue four federal law enforcement agencies that are providing tactical officers to defend the downtown federal courthouse.
State Reps. Janelle S. Bynum, D-Clackamas, and Karin A. Power, D-Milwaukie, along with Portland lawyer and legal observer Sara D. Eddie, the First Unitarian Church of Portland and Western States Center, which tracks extremist groups and provides support to social movements, on Tuesday filed suit in U.S. District Court in Portland against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customers and Border Protection , Federal Protective Service and U.S. Marshals Service.
“The point is this: whether, and how, to police is left to the states and their municipalities. Presidents cannot change that,” the suit says.
“While the federal government may protect its property and personnel, the federal government is constrained by the Constitution from policing the City of Portland broadly speaking, and there is no positive delegation of authority in any law that makes the federal government’s recent forays into general policing in Portland either legal or constitutional.”
The suit comes as local, state and Congressional leaders from Oregon have condemned what they’ve described as heavy-handed force used by the federal officers sent to Portland through an executive order signed by President Donald Trump earlier this month.
The officers have fired tear gas and impact munitions at crowds and journalists, struck some protesters with batons, fired an impact munition at the head of a 26-year-old protester who had his hands above his head holding a music speaker, and plucked at least one person from a city street, whizzed him off in an unmarked van, only to release him later with no charges.
The suit contends federal officers, who have gone beyond the sidewalks outside the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse have encroached upon state powers and violated protesters’ First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly, according to Attorney Clifford S. Davidson, who filed the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs.
It seeks a court order that restricts the federal officers’ actions to the federal courthouse and demands that the federal officers identify themselves and have probable cause to arrest anyone.
The suit follows similar federal complaints filed by Oregon’s attorney general and the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon against the federal law enforcement agencies.
Mayor Ted Wheeler and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown have urged the Trump administration to remove the federal forces from Portland, arguing that they have heightened tensions on the street.
Yet President Trump has professed that political leaders in the city and Oregon have failed to clamp down on violent demonstrators who have thrown objects at police, set fires and vandalized the federal courthouse and other public buildings.
