Portland Mayor tear gassed after speaking with protesters on presence of federal agents

[SunsetDreams2]

(CNN) - Mayor Ted Wheeler was tear gassed in downtown Portland early Thursday morning, according to video and posts on Twitter from a New York Times journalist.

"It stings. It's hard to breathe. I can tell you with 100% honesty I saw nothing that provoked this response," Wheeler said to the Times camera. "I'm not afraid but I am pissed off."

...

Wheeler addressed the presence of federal officers in his city who have been deployed by the Trump administration and are heavily opposed by local leaders across the state and nation. The President said the effort was to protect federal property, but protesters say the action itself has fueled the public's outrage. Demonstrations in the city, many of which have been peaceful, have been ongoing for more than 50 days.

"It is an unconstitutional occupation. The tactics that have been used by our federal officers are abhorrent. They did not act with probable cause, people are not being told, who they are being arrested by, and you're been denied basic constitutional rights," the mayor told the crowd.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/23/us/portland-protests-mayor/index.html

Trumps Gestapo

[Zoonart]

1. Powerful Democrats....Nancy... Chuck?

Former Presidents Obama, Clinton and Carter?

What are you doing about this?

[Demsrule86]

5. Should they wave their magic wand? This is Trump and those including

Stein, Sarandon, Turner and some on the left who voted for Stein...or stayed home helped put this man in power. And the presidency is a very powerful position. Tell me what should Democrats do? We don't have the Senate and we know the pugs will protect Trump...Trump will exploit the law to do God knows what, and I do wish the Democrats could save us...but truth is we didn't fight hard enough to give them the power to do so. I pray our courts and our military will hold. That is about all we can do other than speaking out. I think people should move away from federal buildings...take away their excuse in Portland. We need to be smart about this...and Democrats have spoken out about this and condemned it...what more given their current power can they do?

[Zoonart]

7. I know they don't have a magic wand.

I want to hear CONDEMNATION LOUDLY.
See my post on Portland
:https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=13786910

[Bettie]

12. They can speak up and say

that this is not right.

[triron]

20. Sigh. HRC won the election. Russian hackers installed Trump.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

27. The only way to fight at thsi time

is in the courts. Donate to the ACLU

[lagomorph777]

2. Trump has to pay for this. With jail time.

[ooky]

3. November can't come soon enough this year. nt

[Frustratedlady]

4. Has anyone (of those snatched off the streets) surfaced...been questioned or hired a lawyer?

Why aren't we hearing stories of what the Feds did, where they took them, how they were treated? This is truly strange.

I haven't read today's posts yet (except for this one), so maybe I missed them, but I should think the news media would
be exploding with identifying and getting news items from them.

What about relatives of those snatched, or are these people being grabbed off the streets a set-up? Faux news? Maybe Trump is actually making campaign ads. He has done stranger things in our faces.

[Laelth]

10. I have seen two reports, so far, of the experiences of "questioned" suspects.

They were both reports from the abducted citizens, themselves, and they both followed the same pattern. The suspects were dragged into unmarked vans by unidentified soldiers. They were told nothing about why they were being arrested. They were hooded. They were driven around for a while and then taken to a secured room (most likely in the Federal Courthouse, itself). They were left for a while, and then guards and an inquisitor entered the room. They were read their rights, and then they were asked if they would like to waive their rights and talk. Both men refused and demanded an attorney, at which point they were left alone for another 90 minutes or so. They were never advised of what crimes they had allegedly committed. Finally, they were re-hooded, put back in the van, driven around for a while and deposited some distance from the protest area.

That’s it. No charges. No prosecution. No real injury beyond false imprisonment. No real interrogation, and no way of knowing who (or even what agency) was responsible. If they hired attorneys, those attorneys would have no clue whom to sue.

That’s what I have read so far.

-Laelth

[Frustratedlady]

11. Thank you for that information. Sounds like they left them alone long enough to put the fear of God

in them.

I was thinking they could be keeping those arrested as a warning to others. I would be especially scared if it were a woman who had been abducted.

[Laelth]

13. If you're not seeing this reported, it's because there's very little to report.

That’s my sense of it, fwiw.

-Laelth

[Frustratedlady]

14. What do you mean? Few grabbed off the streets or similar scenarios?

[Laelth]

15. I mean they all seem to tell the same story.

And there’s very little to tell ... not tortured, not interrogated, not charged, not prosecuted, and no clue who actually did it.

That’s not much of a story from a journalist’s perspective.

-Laelth

[PTWB]

16. That's a huge story from a journalist's perspective.

We have unidentified persons (officers? militia?) abducting protesters, covering their heads with hoods, driving them to undisclosed areas, and then never informing them of the reason for arrest.

This may be the biggest story in a generation.

[Laelth]

18. It should be huge. I agree.

But at this point, there’s very little to report.

-Laelth

[PTWB]

25. The fact that there is so little information about what's happening IS the story.

[Frustratedlady]

17. Right. Another waiting game to get the whole picture.

As long as they aren't being harmed, that is good.

Thanks for your reply.

[Fozzledick]

21. This is classic totalitarian terrorism.

Once they see they can get away with secret abductions and interrogation, the next step is torture, rape and murder in secret prisons.

We've seen it before in our client dictatorships in Latin America, in Iraq at Abu Ghraib, and in our illegal torture camp in Guantanamo.

We've seen it normalized on a large scale in Syria, where literally tens of thousands of Sunni Arabs have been tortured and hanged on a virtual assembly line in the secret police prison in Damascus, but that's not much of a story from a corporate journalist’s perspective, just normalized, everyday "dog bites man" business as usual.

That's their ultimate goal, and they've just crossed the line from murdering random black people in the street to a trial run of disappearing political dissidents into secret prisons. Any journalist who thinks that’s not much of a story might have second thoughts when they bring out the bone saws (and you know that's what Trump wants), but by then there will be no one left to speak up.

[triron]

6. What have we become? This has shades of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

[Baitball Blogger]

8. +1

[Fozzledick]

22. Trump has always followed Hitler's playbook based on his study of "My New Order"

(when he could still read)

He's just progressed from putting immigrants in concentration camps in conditions designed to destroy them and packing the courts with Nazi judges who'll let him get away with it to disappearing political dissidents into "Night and Fog" and putting them in secret prisons.

The next step is torture and secret executions.

[Laelth]

9. k&r for visibility. n/t

-Laelth

[crickets]

19. Thank you, Mayor Wheeler.

"This is clearly a waste of federal resources and it's getting increasingly dangerous," Wheeler told CNN. "We did not ask the feds to be here. We do not want them here. They're not helping the situation. They're not appropriately trained, and we're demanding that they leave." [snip]

The mayor responded: "I will absolutely do everything in my power to go get rid of the federal troops and to reform the Portland Police Bureau. We need to do both."

Earlier on Wednesday, a unanimous Portland City Council voted to end cooperation between the Portland Police Bureau and federal agencies charged with protecting federal properties on Wednesday, Commissioner Chloe Eudaly said in a statement.

The feds aren't going to listen, but it's important that you stood up.

[rockfordfile]

23. They should be arrested for that sick crap

[triron]

24. knr

[Doreen]

26. I would not be surprised if they forced the people they kidnapped

to sign a non disclosure order in order to be released.

[w0nderer]

28. Why should they?

they don't have to make anyone sign anything at all and most won't beep a peep

you (no offence) are thinking civilized ..that's a good thing but they aren't thinking civilized

so lgoing to use 'Joe' as an example

pull Joe off the street, black cloth bag over his head,preferably strong smelling so he doesn't get clues
zip tied and dropped on the floor in the back of the car, kicked about or just take some sharp turn and let him roll about

then toss joe out of the car, into a pulle is good, interrogate him with masks on,little stress positions(couple of hours or even minutes depending on which one, they can be rather creative)

lots of yelling pushing shoving, possibly accidentally it rains (or was that a guy with a cold water hose raining it on you, or did you find a puddle) where he is and the room is kept at say 56 or so F, so he is shivering with cold, and of course no bathroom so he needs to soil himself, always good way to dehumanize a 'subject'.

all pockets are emptied, the phone imaged (memory/drive), keys copied, id ssn and debit credit cards copied, a background is run, where are his kids, wife and parents, schools, work places, homes (that's pretty fast)

if you want more out of the phone, possibly offer him to call his family, hand him the phone,(if it's face recognition it'll trigger there, if fingerprint force his finger there, or as he unlocks to dial, retrieve it (now unlocked and accessable) (possibly try to trojan it, or replace it with a compromised version, depends on how much budget, time and interest you have in information vs intimidation)

sounds of people screaming in the background (audio tape)
but Joe doesn't know that, he just knows a child is screaming, or a woman, or another man, or many

if they want they call up his wife, with a recorded voice clip from joe
when she responds, they record and cut that into pieces needed

'Oh Joe' (happy to hear your voice tone) AAAAAHhhhh other woman in pain (similar timbre)

most likely though this is about provokation and intimidation, not interrogation

when done, if you want to return him (not further interrogate, store for later use or vanish)
drop him outside the kindergarten of his children
or his wifes employment place
or by his parents house

just to show 'we got ya and we know where your important people are, and can get to them'

he may not click on that at a conscious level , but under the surface that will tick along quite wel

also on all the others he tells the story to, and their parents and children

so now you meet Joe ask him on a protest and he kinda hesitates and tells his story and now you are less likely to go
but if your S.O. (assuming) hears it they will be rather against the idea of you risking yourself too


i'm sure people with Military training can expand further on these kinda tactics

this would just be a 'simple' little pickup, interrogate, intimidate, drop
it can be made simpler, or more complex as one prefers



now imagine after all this

that the car (as someone else mentioned) could instead of FEDS (you fight back you get jail or shot) have white supremacist/private militia (if you DON'T fight back they kill you no discussion) and you don't know which


and then after 2-3 months of this happening and rumors spreading

you arrive to vote to see 10 civilian cars, unmarked, with masked men in uniform hassling the voters in line, dragging some into cars
doesn't even have to be real, could be false flag (undercover police being dragged from the line) and played off as a joke

intimidation factor will still be there be there

remember no badges, no faces, no trackable numberplates equals no accountability

who did it?
Feds can say wasn't Feds, must have been some vigilantes or something
oh well too bad for Joe i guess
if he kept home like 'a good right thinking patriotic Murrikkkan it wouldn't have happened'

----
dramatized but based on similar real stories from all over the world and history