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Federal Law Enforcement Use Unmarked Vehicles to Grab Protesters in Portland

110 points by aaronbrethorst 6y ago

aneutron 6y ago
Basically Gestapo.
- lambdasquirrel 6y ago
  Maybe. They have much better PR. Since the concentration camps thing has already been done, instead there is that prison-industrial complex, which sounds a lot more palatable because gang violence and the war on drugs. It’s as if we’re being held hostage in the sense that if we want law enforcement accountability, then they’ll pull back the stops on the gangs — which, arguably, is a problem perpetuated by the system, rather than being fixed by it. And then on the other side of things you have boogaloo. I’d argue our situation is at least as bad as the Gestapo because there’s all these strands you have to pull apart.
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
I think it's important to acknowledge that Portland has had nightly riots for over a month. This is troubling if true, and the government had better have a good explanation for what happened here, but for now I'm very willing to give law enforcement the benefit of the doubt.
- Ar-Curunir 6y ago
  There is never a point in time where law enforcement should be given the benefit of doubt. Cops lie. Then again, if the past 2 months of police brutality against protestors and journalists haven’t convinced you of this, then this comment probably won’t either
- olliej 6y ago
  ... what doubt here? They kidnapped people - this guy recorded his “arrest”, unlike the people who did the kidnapping. At no point did these people identify themselves or their agency - no names, no badge numbers. At no point did they say what they were arresting people for. I am genuinely curious: what is your “doubt” here? What part of this seems legal, let alone ethical?
  - tptacek 6y ago
    Are the police required to tell you why they're arresting you? Here's a resource on your rights if you're confronted by the police (or any agent of the government, one supposes): https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/stopped-by-police/#ive-been-stopped-by-the-police-in-public https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/stopped-by-police/#ive...
    - stonogo 6y ago
      What evidence do you have that these are police?
      - JoeSmithson 6y ago
        It says "POLICE" on their uniforms
        stonogo 6y ago
        Like this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085485BKV https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085485BKV That's sufficient for you?
        JoeSmithson 6y ago
        It's always possible to impersonate police, I'm not sure what your point is? Wearing what the officers in the video are wearing - uniform with a prominent POLICE label - is sufficient to be identifying yourself as police, and would be impersonating a police officer if a member of the public did it.
        olliej 6y ago
        So you agree that they're breaking the law by impersonating police?
        JoeSmithson 6y ago
- finaliteration 6y ago
  > Portland has had nightly riots for over a month. I live near Portland and have many friends and coworkers who live in the city and this isn’t true. There have been mostly peaceful protests, yes, but not nightly riots. I’m also not clear on how that would make this acceptable or justified even if it were true.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    I'm not saying the entire city is up in flames, but I've seen pretty scary pictures every night I checked of the area these two were protesting in. If a crowd of people dressed in all black is tossing stuff at police officers, I'd call that a riot. I'm just not tremendously sympathetic to people who contribute to such an atmosphere of lawlessness and then report that their arrest wasn't entirely by the book.
    - fzeroracer 6y ago
      What the fuck? The point is that the police officers and the feds are supposed to do things by the book. They're the law. Their job is to uphold the law, and that includes how they police things. Regardless of who is contributing to an 'atmosphere of lawlessness', that does not give them carte blanche to violate the rights of citizens. Especially not when it comes to pulling people off the streets into unmarked cars and then driving away. Why are you so dead set on downplaying this incident? How do you even know the people in the video are actually feds if they're not announcing who they are and going through proper procedures to arrest someone? What's stopping some jackass in cosplay from pulling the same stunt?
      - JoeSmithson 6y ago
        > "What's stopping some jackass in cosplay from pulling the same stunt?" The ultimate answer to this is; potentially being prosecuted for kidnap and impersonating police. Most police powers boil down to exclusive legal defences that non-police can't use.
        6y ago
causality0 6y ago
This will inevitably lead to police and/or civilians getting shot when an armed civilian responds appropriately to what appears to be an attempted kidnapping.
- ohazi 6y ago
  And because they're law enforcement, they'll respond with 10 times the firepower, killing the armed/confused civilian(s) instantly and effortlessly. They'll get away with it too, because, again... they're law enforcement, and prosecutors are too scared to touch them. Another risk is crazed right-wing vigilantes deciding to drive around in similar vans+camo+guns to kidnap people for real. Law enforcement knows that people are worried about this, and are using this tactic deliberately in order to instill fear. "Do I fight back, because these are racist gun-nuts who are going to lynch me, or do I comply because they're police, and they'll just let me go after they're done unconstitutionally hassling me?" Guess wrong and you die. This is terrorism.
matthberg 6y ago
There was a previously discussed posting of this article with a good few points that was mysteriously flagged. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23866310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23866310
- dang 6y ago
  When you see [flagged] on a story it means users flagged it, so that part is no mystery. Sometimes it's a mystery why they flagged it, but I'm not sure it's hard to understand in this case. The topic is inflammatory, the comments are poor (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23867523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23867523), and there's not much information to discuss.
sxp 6y ago
> Video shot by O’Shea and provided to OPB shows a dark screen as O’Shea narrates the scene. Metadata from the video confirms the time and place of the protesters’ account. It would have been nice if they linked the video. https://twitter.com/matcha_chai/status/1283328232033411072 https://twitter.com/matcha_chai/status/1283328232033411072 was floating around reddit, but it might be a different video.
jimbob45 6y ago
Genius move if this is a one- night thing to scare protesters into not coming out anymore...but it doesn’t sound like that’s their strategy. Any more than one night and you risk deadly complications when citizens prepare for abduction.
jacobriis 6y ago
This is terrifying. First they came for the rioters destroying federal property, and I did not speak out because I was not a rioter destroying federal property.
mey 6y ago
Some additional context on the federal law enforcement situation unfolding in Portland. https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/07/16/oregon-gov-kate-brown-says-president-trump-is-invading-portland-as-an-election-stunt/ https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/07/16/oregon-gov-kate-brown-...
fortran77 6y ago
Sometimes it's obvious why something is flagged. I have No Idea on this one.
- coronadisaster 6y ago
  Maybe the police union is responsible.
coronadisaster 6y ago
Unmarked cars are a small problem in this story but I still think that ghost vehicles should be illegal. They are getting very popular where I live.

Basically Gestapo.

lambdasquirrel 6y ago
Maybe. They have much better PR. Since the concentration camps thing has already been done, instead there is that prison-industrial complex, which sounds a lot more palatable because gang violence and the war on drugs. It’s as if we’re being held hostage in the sense that if we want law enforcement accountability, then they’ll pull back the stops on the gangs — which, arguably, is a problem perpetuated by the system, rather than being fixed by it. And then on the other side of things you have boogaloo. I’d argue our situation is at least as bad as the Gestapo because there’s all these strands you have to pull apart.

I think it's important to acknowledge that Portland has had nightly riots for over a month. This is troubling if true, and the government had better have a good explanation for what happened here, but for now I'm very willing to give law enforcement the benefit of the doubt.

Ar-Curunir 6y ago
There is never a point in time where law enforcement should be given the benefit of doubt. Cops lie. Then again, if the past 2 months of police brutality against protestors and journalists haven’t convinced you of this, then this comment probably won’t either
olliej 6y ago
... what doubt here? They kidnapped people - this guy recorded his “arrest”, unlike the people who did the kidnapping. At no point did these people identify themselves or their agency - no names, no badge numbers. At no point did they say what they were arresting people for. I am genuinely curious: what is your “doubt” here? What part of this seems legal, let alone ethical?
- tptacek 6y ago
  Are the police required to tell you why they're arresting you? Here's a resource on your rights if you're confronted by the police (or any agent of the government, one supposes): https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/stopped-by-police/#ive-been-stopped-by-the-police-in-public https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/stopped-by-police/#ive...
  - stonogo 6y ago
    What evidence do you have that these are police?
    - JoeSmithson 6y ago
      It says "POLICE" on their uniforms
      - stonogo 6y ago
        Like this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085485BKV https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085485BKV That's sufficient for you?
        JoeSmithson 6y ago
        It's always possible to impersonate police, I'm not sure what your point is? Wearing what the officers in the video are wearing - uniform with a prominent POLICE label - is sufficient to be identifying yourself as police, and would be impersonating a police officer if a member of the public did it.
        olliej 6y ago
        So you agree that they're breaking the law by impersonating police?
        JoeSmithson 6y ago
finaliteration 6y ago
> Portland has had nightly riots for over a month. I live near Portland and have many friends and coworkers who live in the city and this isn’t true. There have been mostly peaceful protests, yes, but not nightly riots. I’m also not clear on how that would make this acceptable or justified even if it were true.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I'm not saying the entire city is up in flames, but I've seen pretty scary pictures every night I checked of the area these two were protesting in. If a crowd of people dressed in all black is tossing stuff at police officers, I'd call that a riot. I'm just not tremendously sympathetic to people who contribute to such an atmosphere of lawlessness and then report that their arrest wasn't entirely by the book.
  - fzeroracer 6y ago
    What the fuck? The point is that the police officers and the feds are supposed to do things by the book. They're the law. Their job is to uphold the law, and that includes how they police things. Regardless of who is contributing to an 'atmosphere of lawlessness', that does not give them carte blanche to violate the rights of citizens. Especially not when it comes to pulling people off the streets into unmarked cars and then driving away. Why are you so dead set on downplaying this incident? How do you even know the people in the video are actually feds if they're not announcing who they are and going through proper procedures to arrest someone? What's stopping some jackass in cosplay from pulling the same stunt?
    - JoeSmithson 6y ago
      > "What's stopping some jackass in cosplay from pulling the same stunt?" The ultimate answer to this is; potentially being prosecuted for kidnap and impersonating police. Most police powers boil down to exclusive legal defences that non-police can't use.
      - 6y ago

causality0 6y ago

This will inevitably lead to police and/or civilians getting shot when an armed civilian responds appropriately to what appears to be an attempted kidnapping.

ohazi 6y ago
And because they're law enforcement, they'll respond with 10 times the firepower, killing the armed/confused civilian(s) instantly and effortlessly. They'll get away with it too, because, again... they're law enforcement, and prosecutors are too scared to touch them. Another risk is crazed right-wing vigilantes deciding to drive around in similar vans+camo+guns to kidnap people for real. Law enforcement knows that people are worried about this, and are using this tactic deliberately in order to instill fear. "Do I fight back, because these are racist gun-nuts who are going to lynch me, or do I comply because they're police, and they'll just let me go after they're done unconstitutionally hassling me?" Guess wrong and you die. This is terrorism.

matthberg 6y ago

There was a previously discussed posting of this article with a good few points that was mysteriously flagged. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23866310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23866310

dang 6y ago
When you see [flagged] on a story it means users flagged it, so that part is no mystery. Sometimes it's a mystery why they flagged it, but I'm not sure it's hard to understand in this case. The topic is inflammatory, the comments are poor (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23867523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23867523), and there's not much information to discuss.

sxp 6y ago

> Video shot by O’Shea and provided to OPB shows a dark screen as O’Shea narrates the scene. Metadata from the video confirms the time and place of the protesters’ account. It would have been nice if they linked the video. https://twitter.com/matcha_chai/status/1283328232033411072 https://twitter.com/matcha_chai/status/1283328232033411072 was floating around reddit, but it might be a different video.

jimbob45 6y ago

Genius move if this is a one- night thing to scare protesters into not coming out anymore...but it doesn’t sound like that’s their strategy. Any more than one night and you risk deadly complications when citizens prepare for abduction.

jacobriis 6y ago

This is terrifying. First they came for the rioters destroying federal property, and I did not speak out because I was not a rioter destroying federal property.

mey 6y ago

Some additional context on the federal law enforcement situation unfolding in Portland. https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/07/16/oregon-gov-kate-brown-says-president-trump-is-invading-portland-as-an-election-stunt/ https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/07/16/oregon-gov-kate-brown-...

fortran77 6y ago

Sometimes it's obvious why something is flagged. I have No Idea on this one.

coronadisaster 6y ago
Maybe the police union is responsible.

coronadisaster 6y ago

Unmarked cars are a small problem in this story but I still think that ghost vehicles should be illegal. They are getting very popular where I live.