Portland police asked militia to "help", militia recruited by GOP official

[AmandaRuth]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/08/portland-alt-right-rally-militia-member-police-arrest

Sorry, such a poorly constructed msg, but doing this from my phone. As this is an important chilling story

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

Mat dos Santos, legal director at ACLU of Oregon, criticised the incident, saying that cooperation with one side of a volatile protest demonstrated “the different ways that law enforcement engages with people who look and act like them, and people and communities who don’t look and act like them”.

If the security detail at the event were not licensed, he said, it potentially breached Oregon law. He added that in a state with active militia groups, police cooperation with one side might “embolden self-proclaimed militia to begin engaging in more routine LEO-like [law enforcement-like] activities. I think that’s dangerous.”

[Eugene]

2. Headline at link: Member of Portland militia-style group helps police arrest anti-fascist protester

Source: The Guardian

Member of Portland militia-style group helps police arrest anti-fascist protester

Video footage and photos of the rightwing activist aiding officers
fuel debate over the policing of a recent ‘alt-right’ demonstration

Jason Wilson in Portland
Friday 9 June 2017 01.35 BST

A rightwing protester who was filmed helping law enforcement in Portland arrest an anti-fascist activist has been identified as a member of a “patriot movement” militia-style group.

Todd Kelsay confirmed he was the man captured in photographs and video assisting three officers from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as they pinned down and apprehended the masked protester.

The footage, which shows Kelsay kneeling alongside the DHS officers, and then removing cuffs from the back of one officer, has fueled debate over the policing of the event last Sunday.

A separate photograph shows Kelsay, wearing a camouflage helmet and body armour, and the yellow tape that the event’s private security force was using to identify itself on the day, grabbing the unidentified protester by the scruff of the neck.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/08/portland-alt-right-rally-militia-member-police-arrest

[Scurrilous]

3. K&R

[ProudLib72]

4. OMG!

This makes me so angry! Employing brownshirt thugs to help. At this point, I completely side with the antifa contingent.

[Blue_true]

5. Police should not take sides at protests.

Once police start doing that, they are nothing more than a protection service for one of the sides.

[hvn_nbr_2]

8. They already are a protection service for one side.

If Craven Bundy and his gang of thieves at Malheur had been liberals, that siege would have been over in one day. If a liberal demonstration had pointed guns at law enforcement, there would have been so much tear gas that eyes would have burned in Kansas City, and every one of the protestors would have been either dead or beaten to shit.

[pdxflyboy]

6. Next

I am waiting for 45 to "deputize" the militias.

[luvMIdog]

7. 'oath keeper' reminds me of 'death eaters' from Harry Potter. Brown shirts

[suffragette]

9. Enabling jackboots to perform official authoritative role

This is absolutely the police taking sides in the opposing demonstrations. Chilling, and all the more so given the side they supported was the same side supported by the terrorist murderer on the train.

Yes, this is a very important OP.
https://m.

[suffragette]

10. More from a journalist who photographed this

:small


https://mobile.twitter.com/BryanMVance/status/871776367641329664/photo/1
Bryan M. Vance
@BryanMVance
Jun 5
Replying to @BryanMVance
I have a long string of photos that show that he continued to help officers hold the protester down, using force, throughout the arrest.
View conversation ·

[AmandaRuth]

11. Sorry, I thought the article I posted named the GOP official

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/29/portland-attack-republican-james-buchal-militia-groups