An unidentified federal paramilitary police force is sweeping the streets of Portland at night and kidnapping people in drive-by operations, all while using unmarked civilian vehicles.
On 4 July, federal police arrived in Portland, Oregon with orders to quell the uprising taking place in the city. This invasion into the region and near month-long occupation has come without invitation from local or state authorities and has seen an increase of brutality against protestors at the hands of policing forces. In a 27 July press release, Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler and City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty called for “a cease-fire and removal of heightened federal forces from Portland.” During this occupation, Governor Kate Brown has called these federal troops “secret police,” and consistently demanded that they be removed. Despite these calls, federal forces remain in Portland undermining regional liberties, showing the lengths the US government will go to obstruct and break up popular movements.
Supposedly protecting federal property, these agents wear no personal or organizational identification on their fatigues other than a badge that simply says “Police,” and they seemingly answer to no one. In recent weeks, these brownshirts have added to their already lengthy list of fascist suppression tactics by performing kidnappings of protestors in unmarked civilian vehicles.
These operations are quick— taking only a matter of seconds from the unmarked civilian vehicle stopping, a handful of unidentified people in fatigues stepping out to capture a person from the street or sidewalk, and returning to their vehicle to whisk them away. Oregon is an area with many active white supremacist and far right-wing militias that have stated their desires to harm protestors in the region. Given that the invading paramilitary forces have absolutely no unique identifying information on their uniforms, many have feared that these operations could be repeated by non-police groups with even worse intentions. So far, this has yet to happen, however the threat and the fear remain real.
Protestors who were taken by these federal agents have stated that they were told nothing about where they were going and that they were held without any kind of formal charges levied against them— most likely because their occupation and any arrests they make are illegal. Those who refused to give information to these agents during interrogations are typically released back onto the streets after hours of detention, only being told what cross-street they are on.
This type of black-bagging operation is clearly meant to be a display of power to the protestors- threatening them with being disappeared by unidentifiable federal agents for unknown reasons and for unknown amounts of time. Tactics like these can easily escalate from illegal arrests into illegal long-term detentions. We already know this is something federal forces do on the regular- just look at the activities of Customs and Border Patrol in conjunction with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security.
Speculation aside, this should be alarming, as the President of the so-called “United States” has threatened to invade other cities in the Cascadian region, such as Seattle. Should that happen, we can only expect that kidnappings will become more widespread as protests continue to take place.
A handful of questions remain unanswered: What authority do these federal agents have to make these arrests without probable cause? Will this become the new normal for government forces to keep order in their discordant system? And how can people protect and defend themselves from being kidnapped by groups of unidentified paramilitary agents with potentially dangerous intentions?
