You’re walking down the street when an unmarked van screeches up alongside you and heavily armed authorities clad in paramilitary gear pile out of it. They throw you in the van, not identifying themselves or telling you what agency they’re with. They refuse to tell you why you’re being detained.
This is what Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland, Ore., described happening last week. And if it can happen there it can happen anywhere, unless Americans take firm action to stop President Donald Trump and his administration in their use of secret police.
What occurred in Portland were extrajudicial arrests, pure and simple. The situation was chilling and became even more so when Trump vowed to “take over” other cities where protests are occurring.
Will America have its own “disappeared” citizens next? Will citizens be detained under the color of authority but without being charged with a crime?
These are real possibilities in light of Portland, where personal accounts and viral videos showed officials in camouflage driving up to people, detaining them without explanation and carrying them away. This has been happening since July 14, according to media reports.
In making these extrajudicial arrests, the Trump administration is apparently escalating its efforts to “quell” protests that have been occurring for weeks outside the federal courthouse. Federal authorities say Department of Homeland Security agents have been sent to protect federal property, but some of the snatch-and-grab detainments are happening away from the courthouse, and it’s not apparent that any charges have been filed against any detainee.
To the contrary, in at least one case a protester demanded legal representation and was immediately released. The detainments are about intimidation, and have nothing to do with quelling illegal activity. When the DHS acting director tried to justify the agents’ actions by sharing examples of what he described as violence, the photos he used merely showed graffiti.
In an interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting, one protester said he was walking home after a peaceful night of protesting when he was suddenly detained.
“I am basically tossed into the van,” he said. “And I had my beanie pulled over my face so I couldn’t see and they held my hands over my head.”
Then there’s the story of Christopher David, a 53-year-old U.S. Naval Academy graduate and former member of the Navy’s Civil Engineer Corps, at Saturday’s protests.
David said he went to the protest — his first time at any demonstration — after hearing about the extrajudicial arrests. His intent was to ask the officials there about their oath of office to protect the Constitution. It was a perfectly legitimate question: The First Amendment gives protesters the right to assemble and the 14th Amendment protects Americans from being detained without probable cause.
But when David approached the officials, he was beaten badly with a baton and pepper-sprayed. David, a former wrestler who stands 6-foot-2, stood up to the abuse but emerged with two broken bones and with no response to his question.
“Those officers were small,” he told a reporter afterward. “They seemed scared. They had no tactics, just seemed like a gang.”
City and state officials immediately intervened, to their credit. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler called for Trump to remove his “personal army” from the city and said the DHS’ heavy presence was only making tensions worse in the city. Oregon’s attorney general filed suit against the administration for violating protesters’ civil rights by arresting them without probable cause.
In addition, U.S. House members have called for an investigation.
Responses like that are as American as red, white and blue — a defense of the rule of law and a nod to our heritage as a nation founded to protect its citizens against totalitarian abuse.
But the real solution is for Americans to support the right to peaceful protest, and contact their lawmakers to demand that Congress take action. Then, in November, they can vote Trump out of office and end his corruption of federal law enforcement agencies.
What happened in Portland has been years in the making, as Trump has denigrated and marginalized the Federal Bureau of Investigation while increasingly empowering DHS to carry out his suppression of dissent. Trump’s lawless machinations have come in big and small ways: gutting DHS of its leadership to install his own yes-men; reportedly suggesting he would pardon border agents for breaking asylum laws and refusing to allow migrants to enter the U.S.; pardoning war criminals; subverting proper investigations into his unlawful actions, and more.
The Trump administration also has shielded the DHS from public accountability, allowed it to maintain a lack of transparency and defended it against complaints of malfeasance and incompetence.
The result is a DHS that is morphing into a secret police force before our eyes.
Trump must be stopped from further using federal officials to silence dissenters and punish his perceived enemies. Americans can’t stand by and let what happened in Portland spread to other communities under this or any other president. It would be just as bad if a Democratic president exercised extrajudicial authority against conservative protesters.
“The feds have been ramping up their brutality, but I didn’t think this was gonna happen,” another Portland protester told Oregon Public Broadcasting. “After the other night it was like, ‘OK, this is a testing ground for federal occupation of cities.’ This is just furthering the weird authoritarian fantasy Trump is living in.”
The problem is, it’s no longer a fantasy. Trump is turning it into reality.