Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jul 17 2020 07:25pm)
Sure, if due process is violated here, it needs to be called out. I'm just saying that we dont know what is going on there, and that those early media reports sound very fishy and dramatized.
Homeland Security Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli has commented on it:
Quote
Speaking to NPR's All Things Considered on Friday, Homeland Security Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli acknowledged that federal agents had used unmarked vehicles to pick up people in Portland but said it was done to keep officers safe and away from crowds and to move detainees to a "safe location for questioning."
"The one instance I'm familiar with, they were, believed they had identified someone who had assaulted officers or ... the federal building there, the courthouse. Upon questioning, they determined they did not have the right person and that person was released," Cuccinelli said.
"I fully expect that as long as people continue to be violent and to destroy property that we will attempt to identify those folks," he added. "We will pick them up in front of the courthouse. If we spot them elsewhere, we will pick them up elsewhere. And if we have a question about somebody's identity, like the first example I noted to you, after questioning determine it isn't someone of interest, then they get released. And that's standard law enforcement procedure, and it's going to continue as long as the violence continues."
From 8:48pm update here:
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/17/892277592/federal-officers-use-unmarked-vehicles-to-grab-protesters-in-portlandThe issue is that during the chaos there, you have people in camouflage running out of unmarked cars, detaining people, putting them into the vehicles, and driving off to 'question them' after-the-fact. They've also done this after mistakenly grabbing the wrong person. In a time where some of these protests across the country have been met with people instigating violence against protesters in/with unmarked cars, it seems like a less than well thought out approach.
For the people there protesting, including peaceful protesters, getting caught up in these actions is unsettling:
Quote
"Feds are driving around, grabbing people off the streets," O'Shea said on the video. "I didn't do anything f*****g wrong. I'm recording this. I had to let somebody know that this is what happens."
Pettibone did not escape the federal officers.
"I am basically tossed into the van," Pettibone said. "And I had my beanie pulled over my face so I couldn't see, and they held my hands over my head."
Pettibone and O'Shea both said they couldn't think of anything they might have done to end up targeted by law enforcement. They attend protests regularly, but they said they aren't "instigators." They don't spray-paint buildings, shine laser pointers at officers or do anything else other than attend protests, which law enforcement have regularly deemed "unlawful assemblies."
Blinded by his hat, in an unmarked minivan full of armed people dressed in camouflage and body armor who hadn't identified themselves, Pettibone said he was driven around downtown before being unloaded inside a building. He wouldn't learn until after his release that he had been inside the federal courthouse.
This post was edited by Handcuffs on Jul 17 2020 08:42pm