Opinion: Trump just adding fuel to fire set by Portland's Democratic leaders

[Nevilledog]

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/Opinion-Democratic-leaders-and-local-police-in-15426722.php


My friend and chair of the history department at Oregon’s Lewis & Clark College, Maureen Healy, was shot in the head by President Donald Trump’s police with a less lethal munition late Monday night. She is doing fine now and at home, but the feds must go. And so must the local police. Long before the feds arrived in Portland, local police assaulted scores of journalists, legal observers and peaceful protesters with tear gas, pepper spray and flash bang grenades, beating some of them with batons.

The story of Portland’s progressive Mayor Ted Wheeler resisting Trump’s storm troopers’ brutalization of Black Lives Matter protesters serves Trump’s campaign as well as Wheeler’s efforts to distract from his own police bureau’s damning record. In Portland, the mayor is the police commissioner. As the national media focuses on the unconstitutional abductions of protesters from the streets of Portland and the nightly litany of assaults on protesters, the much longer and more persistent history of local police engaging in some of the very same attacks is lost.

In a letter to Attorney General William Barr and Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, Wheeler joined with progressive mayors from Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Kansas City to decry the use of “significant force against protesters on a nightly basis.” Portland’s police have been using the same tactics for more than 50 days. Is Wheeler only upset when federal forces are the ones doing the brutalizing? Ultimately, almost all policing is local, and if you want to stop police brutality, you must address police violence in cities led by liberal Democrat mayors.

The apparent showdown between Portland’s mayor and Trump’s police obscures the fact that local police had already been collaborating with federal police throughout these protests. The mayor has repeatedly insisted that there was no cooperation between local and federal police, and yet hours after one of his public pronouncements, federal officers and Portland police advanced on protesters in a coordinated operation. We also learned from Deputy Chief Chris Davis’ testimony to state lawmakers that a member of the Federal Protective Services was in the downtown Portland police command post during the demonstrations. Portland’s Chief of Police Chuck Lovell also revealed that his officers share real-time plans with the federal police and operate in “very, very close proximity.” While the mayor is scrambling to distance himself from Trump, it is clear that the federal and local police are standing shoulder-to-shoulder. On Wednesday, City Council voted to cease any cooperation between city law enforcement and federal agents in Portland.

*snip*

[Thekaspervote]

1. Whoa!! Good find, thx for posting. Bookmarking

It gives me hope that things will not go so far wrong in other cities

[LeftInTX]

2. Who knows?

Portland was probably targeted by Trump for various reasons.

I live in San Antonio and if a bunch of stormtroopers showed up here, everyone would just go home. Trump knew he could get a show in Portland, but if no one shows up, why bother?

Also Ted Cruz wants to punish Oregon. (Well that's another shitshow itself)

[Thekaspervote]

3. Interesting...I agree I really wish Portland would go home. They play right into dotard's shit show