Oregon has agreed to deploy state police to protect federal buildings in Portland amid violent racial justice protests, and once they have succeeded the additional federal forces deployed by Homeland Security will leave, the department announced Wednesday.
Acting Secretary Chad Wolf announced in a statement that he’d struck a deal with Gov. Kate Brown that includes “a robust presence of Oregon State Police” to help out.
“The department will continue to re-evaluate our security posture in Portland, and should circumstances on the ground significantly improve due to the influx of state and local law enforcement, we anticipate the ability to change our force posture, as we do everyday at our other 9,000 federal properties we protect across the country,” he said.
Ms. Brown, a Democrat, confirmed the deal on Twitter — though she saw the details differently, saying Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel will withdraw starting Thursday.
She did agree to deploy state police, though she cast their mission as protecting protesters, rather than the federal buildings that have been under attack.
“Our local Oregon State Police officers will be downtown to protect Oregonians’ right to free speech and keep the peace,” she said. “Let’s center the Black Lives Matter movement’s demands for racial justice and police accountability. It’s time for bold action to reform police practices.”
Despite the differing versions of what’s to happen, the deal represents a breakthrough after more than 60 days of protests that have increasingly targeted the federal Hatfield Courthouse in the city’s downtown.
Federal officers have been pelted with bottles, been blinded by high-intensity lasers, tried to duck attacks from commercial-grade mortar-launched fireworks, and dealt with Molotov cocktails and fires.
Protesters, meanwhile, say they’ve been tear-gassed and fired at with less-lethal rounds such as pepper balls and impact projectiles.
Federal officials say Portland officials had blocked their own police, leaving the situation to spiral out of control and forcing deployment of more federal officers and agents — the very thing Portland officials said they didn’t want to see.
