
Unidentified Federal Law Enforcement Detaining Protestors Without Explanation - growlix
https://www.opb.org/news/article/federal-law-enforcement-unmarked-vehicles-portland-protesters/
======
matthberg
Why was this flagged? There's another thread of this exact same article on the
front page at the moment, too.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23866926](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23866926)

~~~
6nf
Because the headline is nonsense. The cops are not 'unidentified', they are
clearly identified as federal law enforcement and they are arresting people
who they believe have broken the law. They are not kidnapping random people
off the street.

~~~
op00to
I didn’t see the men identify themselves in the video. Did you? Seems pretty
clear cut definition of “unidentified” to not say who you are or what
organization you’re with.

~~~
6nf
It's on their uniforms

------
darksaints
This sort of thing is terrifying to me. I've read a little bit about the
Stasi, and back then the whole idea behind it seemed too absurd to believe.
Now we're living it. If you question or protest the status quo, you are
literally putting your life in danger.

~~~
blisseyGo
These people are not protestors. There were rioters who would mix in with the
protestors and then start violence. Protestors don't show up dressed in all
black with a helmet and baseball bat.

They have also been allowed to throw bricks, molotovs, bats etc on law
enforcement and people. They are destroying the peaceful protests to turn them
into violence. Local law enforcement hasn't been doing anything to stop it
because the mayors have been useless. That's where the feds intervene -
especially because most of these people who are getting arrested are crossing
state lines and therefore federal.

~~~
tehwebguy
Local law enforcement have been arresting violent and non-violent protestors
alike throughout the last few months, I’m not sure where you are getting the
idea that they haven’t been.

~~~
blisseyGo
No. Local law enforcement is being handicapped by mayors and DAs who are
letting go of the violent rioters free without any charges.

~~~
WalterGR
Could you provide some examples for this claim as well as your others?

~~~
blisseyGo
Just look at Chicago, New York etc. Both have broken historical records of
shootings as well as fatalities. Portland has been rioting for over 45 days
and the Mayor and Governor is not even stopping rioters from burning down
federal property.

23 million in damages to federal property including courthouse:

[https://www.theepochtimes.com/violent-demonstrations-in-
port...](https://www.theepochtimes.com/violent-demonstrations-in-portland-
cause-23-million-in-damage-lost-business-police_3417876.html)

> A review of court records showed 59 people arrested during Portland
> demonstrations had charges dismissed, including several people arrested on
> felony charges.

[https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/protests/criminal-
cha...](https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/protests/criminal-charges-
against-dozens-of-portland-protesters-
dropped/283-0571774d-43e4-4750-903a-db8e686a7a51)

The person who set the court house on fire also got his charges dropped.

------
fzeroracer
This is _straight up_ fascistic. Regardless of your opinions of the protesters
or if they committed a crime, the feds should never do this, full stop. The
feds making a proper arrest should announce who they are, who they're with and
why they're making the arrest. The reason being that you have _no clue_ if
they actually are the feds or not. They could just be some jackoffs wearing
cosplay looking to cause trouble and this gives them explicit cover in
addition to being overt violations of someone's rights.

If you're one of the pro-freedom people here on HN, how could you _ever_
rationalize this sort of thing? In what world is it ever OK for the feds to do
this sort of thing? This is something both the left and the right should be
able to fully agree on!

I'm incredibly disappointed this got flagged, but not surprised. It is
somewhat ironic though, since on HN any threads about perceived censorship
gets massive amounts of votes such as when Twitter added the disclaimer to
Trump's tweets. But then you have someone quite literally being abducted
without cause and here come the flags and the 'it's too political' signs
coming out.

~~~
femiagbabiaka
Spot on. Another sign of the rot of America, not sure if there is any coming
back.

------
staplers
As a Portland resident, I can confirm the PPB has been escalating peaceful
protests in neighborhoods. A few days ago protesters (including a mother of a
protester who was horrifically maimed by an impact munition to the face by
feds) were attacked and teargassed outside the police union hall in a very
residential neighborhood.

The border patrol, DHS, and Portland Police Bureau are purposely terrorizing
the citizens of Portland for political motives every single night. Portland is
a lightning rod for right-wing animosity.

A lot of previously passive citizens are becoming radicalized by these events
(similar to wartorn countries) and it kind of feels like a foreign occupation
at this point.

I don't think I can ever go back to trusting police or the federal government
the same way.

------
blisseyGo
What's really happening is that these rioters (not the protestors) are watched
trying to instigate violence at the protests and when they leave the area,
they get arrested. This is because the local government has been absolutely
useless at doing their job at stopping the rioting.

Start at 9:30 timestamp:

[https://youtu.be/3ptD6koTknw?t=570](https://youtu.be/3ptD6koTknw?t=570)

People sharing videos of this share either selectively edited videos without
context OR they only share the ending part where they are arrested and not the
part where they were instigating violence in the peaceful protests.

[https://youtu.be/ha-7SETmJD4](https://youtu.be/ha-7SETmJD4)

Also they are not unidentified. They have Police on their chest.

There's also a theory (can't confirm this) that these are undercover
operatives being extracted as they have been infiltrated Antifa.

~~~
fzeroracer
None of what you said matters and here's why.

It doesn't matter who they're arresting and for what reason. They should
announce who they are, using marked vehicles and properly arrest them if they
have actually committed a crime.

Because otherwise, what's stopping someone from dressing up in military garb
and straight up abducting someone? How do you know they're even part of the
federal law enforcement and not actually someone taking advantage of the
situation to commit crimes as well?

~~~
dfraser992
Exactly. If the "authorities" had any integrity, they'd be following the
"process" and that would give them at least a fig leaf of legitimacy. Not sure
why you're getting downvoted, but looking at these growing comments, I think
there is a brigade going on to influence the discussion.

~~~
growlix
Yup. Post got flagged too. I assume because it's "political", but in my
experience HN is very interested in civil liberties.

------
boomboomsubban
This is the agency that "saved" Elián González, subtlety has never been their
specialty. Good to see border patrol performing their job...

------
ideals
The video of this is crazy. It looks like a Hollywood movie.

~~~
Misker
Do you have a link?

~~~
gav
Here's one such encounter:
[https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1283452585945583618](https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1283452585945583618)

What rights do you have resisting being grabbed from the street by somebody
who isn't identifying themselves as law enforcement? They just have a "police"
patch, they could be cosplayers.

~~~
mindslight
You most certainly have the right to defend yourself with lethal force, but
good luck practically asserting that right. About the only hope for that would
be citizen militias organizing to defend society against these lawless
criminals.

This here should be a call for the libertarian-oriented red tribe to fight
back against government tyranny. Either much of the red tribe needs to break
free of their propaganda bubble misleading them into thinking this
totalitarian behavior is in any way American, or things are going to continue
to get uglier and uglier.

~~~
cinquemb
One can be against the lockdowns in response to a public health emergency and
against incidences like these…

Reminds me of my response to my wife in reaction to the State Dept "pleading"
for americans to come back "home"… I'm strongly in the camp of things getting
worse and worse because none of the underlying issues in modern american
society have been adequately addressed for a long time.

~~~
mindslight
I edited that bit out because it was invoking a generalized "other" that
didn't need to be. Just by sheer numbers, surely some who were protesting at
state capitols are also protesting unaccountable police and institutionalized
racism.

More succinctly though, there are many people refusing to wear masks, claiming
it is government control rather than reasonable common sense in their own best
interest. Meanwhile this is actual tyranny that must be resisted if we are to
retain our remaining freedoms.

For the general trend, I want to hope that we're seeing the darkness before
the light, but my cynical side tells me that's just a coping mechanism.

~~~
cinquemb
> More succinctly though, there are many people refusing to wear masks,
> claiming it is government control rather than reasonable common sense in
> their own best interest.

Yeah, I don't get that, but I'm not surprised many americans are against
stupidly cheap ways to slow spread to any degree. However in response to that,
lockdowns (stupidly expensive) seem to just bring on more unintended negative
effects while still no guarantee at all against future death from covid.

Luckily for me, I moved to place where the government isn't strong enough to
enforce such a lockdown (or a bunch of other things USG and individual state
govs routinely get away with the relative apathy of the public) and people
already have a culture of wearing masks in public.

> For the general trend, I want to hope that we're seeing the darkness before
> the light, but my cynical side tells me that's just a coping mechanism.

This is nothing yet, if history is any lesson. I've long abandoned any sense
of hope.

~~~
mindslight
While being generally libertarian, I did support the shutdowns because 1.
there are many people who have very little choice whether to keep going to
work, due to the rent treadmill the government has created 2. some kind of
actual change was/is required to snap most people out of just going about
their business as usual.

That expensive course of action should have been used to regroup and implement
a sensible containment plan. Instead that time was basically wasted, which is
need the real tragedy.

> _I 'm not surprised many americans are against stupidly cheap ways to slow
> spread to any degree_

I've got to ask specifically why would you expect this? I mean I see the
general ignorance and deference to expensive centralized solutions. But I
would have thought that a pan-partisan shared threat like a pandemic would
have put more people on the same page.

~~~
cinquemb
> 2\. some kind of actual change was/is required to snap most people out of
> just going about their business as usual.

If the basis for such change comes from state diktats rather than
understanding and willingness of the population to adopt such from their own
initiatives… it's not surprising things are turning out the way they are.

> That expensive course of action should have been used to regroup and
> implement a sensible containment plan. Instead that time was basically
> wasted, which is need the real tragedy.

Short from martial law, my confidence in any government to succeed in such
from the get go is nil. Bull in a china shop.

> But I would have thought that a pan-partisan shared threat like a pandemic
> would have put more people on the same page.

I would think the same thing to if the incentives for most people to be on the
same page were there pre pandemic… they were not. Now there's a free for all
of conflicting ideologies, while still being crushed under the weight of
decades of malfeasance that has only been exacerbated even more.

------
mdoms
This is utterly disturbing, and just as disturbing is the apparent reaction
(or lack thereof) in this comment section. I know you guys have a lot to think
about right now but, Americans, please understand that this is horrifying and
unacceptable.

------
dfraser992
Reddit was all over that video the other day. The general consensus was that
it looked more like an extraction of an undercover operative (dressed all in
black! with only the eyes visible!). That seems plausible to me because of how
cooperative the guy in black is, the efficiency of the whole thing, the fact
that none of the other people in the area/video seemed to know who the guy was
(they had to ask him his name, etc).

And the general theory that America is some sort of police state. Undercover
operators during a protest (of any sort) is an entirely logical supposition.
No, it is not a blatant one; I am not being dramatic. However, the current
social turmoil is revealing the oft-ignored dark side of the police to "white
America" and I think that is a good thing.

I live in the UK now and the atmosphere in general here is different, I've
interacted with police a few times, and no issues - but I am white. If you're
in London and black... it is different. Yes, there have been stories of
undercover police doing all sorts of shite with respect to environmental
protesters aka "terrorists"... and lists of undesirables aka leftists...

But even then, it is still nothing like America. This is just my experience
and gut feeling - the Robert Peel theory of policing still lives on here - in
the States, the theory of policing is more like police are the occupying
force. Cutting the budgets of police departments will help go a long way
towards controlling the problem - here, the police have a limited budget (and
manpower) and so have to be smart in not wasting money and dealing with
avoidable hassles.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I hasn’t heard of Sir Robert Peel before, thanks.

Though I was aware of the general concept of policing by consent.

Here’s the Wikipedia entry on Peelian principales of policing:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles)

 _The Peelian principles summarise the ideas that Sir Robert Peel developed to
define an ethical police force. The approach expressed in these principles is
commonly known as policing by consent in the United Kingdom and other
countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

In this model of policing, police officers are regarded as citizens in
uniform. They exercise their powers to police their fellow citizens with the
implicit consent of those fellow citizens. "Policing by consent" indicates
that the legitimacy of policing in the eyes of the public is based upon a
general consensus of support that follows from transparency about their
powers, their integrity in exercising those powers and their accountability
for doing so._

