Portland’s City Council has voted to ban local police officers from cooperating with the Department of Homeland Security who were sent to get violent protesters under control after 55 days of nightly unrest.
The ban prevents the Portland Police Bureau from giving, requesting or knowingly receiving “operational support” from federal officers sent to the city under President Trump’s recent executive order. A second resolution protects journalists from being subjected to violence or arrest.
Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler, who is vehemently opposed to federal troops in his city, has ordered Police Chief Chuck Lovell to implement the resolutions immediately.
City commissioner, Chloe Eudaly, who penned the document, said the resolution represents
a statement of our opposition to their presence in our city” that other cities facing intervention can use as a template.
The resolution passed just hours before federal officers began working to clear rioters from the streets of Portland, deploying tear gas and other measures to disburse the crowd. Mayor Wheeler, who was in attendance wearing a surgical-style mask and googles, succumbed to some of the tear gas when federal agents deployed canisters to keep protesters from breaching a fence protecting the courthouse.
The Mayor who had arrived earlier in the day was promptly escorted away from the scene by his security detail, as rioters screamed obscenities at him and started a fire near the courthouse. One protester was heard saying “you
f*cking fake ass liberal, you gassed us first!
