Huh? Biden DOJ settled lawsuit with violent Antifa, BLM after 2020 rioters injured over 600 federal agents | Law Enforcement Today

PORTLAND, OR - The American Civil Liberties Union announced on Tuesday that a settlement was reached between the Department of Justice and the Antifa and BLM rioters who were countered in their violent, illegal demonstrations that wracked the Oregon city in 2020.

The lawsuit centered around allegations that federal agents deployed by the Trump Administration during the widespread rioting and unrest had “beaten, shot, and abducted” causing “serious injuries,” with what the ACLU branded as “federal law enforcement’s unlawful, aggressive actions,” per the Associated Press.

The outlet reported that over the span of 90 days in 2020, local police arrested hundreds of protestors and federal agents arrested approximately 100. Authorities responded to the unrest with non-lethal crowd control munitions including tear gas, rubber bullets, and pepper spray.

In a statement, the ACLU referred to these as “chemical weapons” that are “banned in international warfare because of their severe and indiscriminate impact on human life and health.”

ACLU of Oregon Legal Director, Kelly Simon, claimed the arrested rioters “suffered serious injuries because of federal law enforcement’s unlawful, aggressive actions, and it is just and fair that they are being compensated," adding, “Our clients and all people who stood up for Black lives and against government tyranny.”

According to The Post Millennial’s Andy Ngo, the settlement was agreed to in the waning days of the Biden Administration’s control over the Department of Justice.

As reported by The New York Post in July during the height of the rioting the “protestors” used slingshots to launch projectiles including rocks, lit fireworks, and bottles at police and hurled the incendiary devices into the windows of the Portland Federal Courthouse. The outlet noted some demonstrators were “very hostile and violent” toward the police.

According to a July 2020 bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security, at the time President Trump ordered federal agents to intervene in Portland, the city had “seen over 50 straight nights of criminal violence perpetrated by anarchists targeting city and federal properties and those that inhabit them." On July 3rd, before the surge of DHS law enforcement officers to Portland, Mayor Wheeler said the violence had “been going on for more than a month now” and called for the “nightly violence” to end.

In response to allegations of “infringing upon the rights of peaceful protestors,” DHS replied at the time, “Unfortunately, violent criminal activity is occurring in Portland. Between the hours of midnight and 5:00 am every morning, well-organized criminal acts of violence and destruction of property (federal, public, and private) are taking place. These criminal anarchists have attempted to burn down and cause extreme damage to the federal courthouse and harm to law enforcement officers.”

As reported by AP, the settlement between the federal government and the plaintiffs involves compensation for injuries sustained during the protests, however, the specific amounts were not disclosed publicly. The plaintiffs included a college professor, and several “Black Lives Matter activists.”

federal report cited by the AP conducted by the Biden Administration found “DHS was unprepared to effectively execute cross-component activities in Portland,” according to DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari. “Specifically, not all officers had completed required training, had the necessary equipment, or used consistent uniforms, devices, and operational tactics.”

The AP reported that during the deployment between July 13 and 30th 2020, 639 federal agents of the 755 deployed to Portland were injured in the riots and treated for blurred vision and headaches from rioters armed with lasers, temporary hearing loss, and headaches from fireworks and mortar explosives and wounds inflicted by projectiles including steel balls rocks and filled bottles. Molotov cocktails were even used by the rioters against the agents.

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