ACLU files lawsuit against the feds and Portland police over protest attacks
Lawsuit claims that federal officers have targeted medics with tear gas, rubber bullets, and unlawful arrests as they work to serve peaceful protesters
The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Marshals Service.
The suit specifically represents volunteer medics who have been working during the protests taking place in Portland which have gone on beyond 50 days.
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According to The Hill, the lawsuit alleges that federal officers have targeted medics with tear gas, rubber bullets, and unlawful arrests as they work to serve peaceful protesters.
“Volunteer medics should be celebrated, not attacked or arrested,” Jann Carson, interim executive director of the ACLU of Oregon, said in a statement. “Our clients are volunteering day and night to provide aid to the injured and to create a safer environment for protesters and bystanders. These attacks are unconscionable as well as unconstitutional. This lawlessness must end.”
(Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
One of the plaintiffs, Michael Martinez, is a graduate student at Oregon Health & Science University. He has been serving as a volunteer protest medic for over a month.
“I filed this lawsuit because many people in this country, such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, will never have their day in court,” Martinez said in a statement. “I feel it’s all the more important to use whatever resources and power I have to confront this abhorrent system, which allows people in America, primarily Black people, to be beaten and killed by police without consequence.”
Another ACLU lawsuit filed last week was filed on behalf of journalists who have also been targeted. That lawsuit seeks to block federal law enforcement from “dispersing, arresting, threatening to arrest, or using physical force against journalists or legal observers.”
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Kelly Simon of ACLU-Oregon said, “Under the direction of the Trump administration, federal agents are terrorizing the community, risking lives, and brutally attacking protesters demonstrating against police brutality.”
Simon continued, “This is police escalation on top of police escalation. These federal agents must be stopped and removed from our city. We will continue to bring the full firepower of the ACLU to bear until this lawless policing ends.”
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