Hatred of President Trump is fueling protests in Portland, Oregon, prompting activists to threaten the lives of federal police in hopes of driving them away and handing the White House a major embarrassment, according to an agent who broke the code of silence to describe the situation.
“As the night goes on, the rioters become so hateful it is surreal. Their voices hoarse, their sentences jumbled, they seem almost catatonic with hate,” said the agent of the Portland clashes that have nearly reached 60-straight nights.
“A totally surreal experience. You get large, nonviolent demonstrations where people march, they chant, they give speeches, then shortly after are replaced with a smaller crowd, though still large, who immediately start trying to break into and destroy the federal courthouse. They have transposed their hatred for the president and for law enforcement onto the physical structure of the federal courthouse, and the uniformed personnel whose job is to protect that courthouse,” the agent told the Center for Immigration Studies.
The agent, assigned to protect Portland's Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse, talked to the center’s national security fellow Todd Bensman to reveal the experience of the agents under attack every night.
The situation has played out in several other cities. President Trump has moved to send federal agents into violence zones to protect federal buildings, leading to support in polls but condemnation by Democrats.
In Portland, the protests have turned violent after midnight. The agent described it this way:
“They throw homemade Molotov cocktails, try to set the walls on fire, try to cut and pry through the plywood covering the glass walls, all the while screaming vitriol until their voices are cracked and hoarse. When DHS personnel are visible, they throw frozen water bottles at them, canned goods, paint, and gasoline. They try to shine high powered lasers into our eyes, which can cause permanent damage. They chant and spray paint "feds go home" as one of their slogans, and that could be easily achieved. If they could prove they wouldn't destroy the courthouse, DHS personnel would go home. It is that simple.”
The DHS agent said the hate drives many protesters to rage against the police and federal agents.
“Some of the things screamed at us, ad nauseum: ‘Go home! You're Nazis, racists, the Gestapo! F--- you, f--- your mom, you suck! Quit your job and go f--- yourself! I'm going to get all your f---ing names!’” the agent told CIS.
The agent added, “I'm seeing African American Federal Protective Service inspectors, 20 year's [a] law enforcement officer, being called the N-word to their face for the first time in their careers, by a scrawny, pasty white booger-eating communist shithead.”
Meanwhile, said the agent, the police take the abuse until the destruction begins. “The officers stand calmly, listening to it, taking it, only making a move if the rioters try to destroy the property or enter the area they have been told repeatedly not to enter. They [the agents] don't even respond to thrown projectiles, merely calmly dodging them,” said the agent.
Leaving, however, is a lose-lose situation for federal officials, said the agent, who told CIS:
“If federal law enforcement leaves, we lose face, but we walk away with stacks of overtime pay, and we get to go home. Portland wins. They get to say they defeated Trump, and they will have caused tens of millions of monetary loss to their downtown local businesses, and will have ransacked and torched a courthouse in the heart of their.
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