Tag Archives: Police

Police declare riot as Portland protesters set fires, attack government building

By Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) – Protesters lit fires, threw rocks and smashed windows at county government offices in the U.S. city of Portland on Tuesday, prompting police to declare a riot, after weeks of mostly peaceful anti-racism demonstrations.

The protesters, some wearing gas masks and carrying shields, lit fires in dumpsters and used lighter fuel to start a fire inside the Multnomah Building big enough to set off the sprinkler system, police said.

TV footage showed debris on the street in flames and people throwing stones at the building. The fire in the building was put out by police, media said.

Black Lives Matter protests have been held across the United States in recent months after the May 25 death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Protests, including in Portland, have at times erupted into arson and violence, and federal officers sent into the Northwestern city have repeatedly clashed with crowds targeting the federal courthouse there.

Police said some officers were targeted a night earlier with a “powerful green laser” capable of causing permanent eye damage when some protesters marched on the Portland Police Association building.

“Portland Police has declared the gathering near the Multnomah Building a riot after individuals vandalized, repeatedly smashed first floor windows with rocks and threw burning material into an office,” the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office said on Twitter.

Police said some crowd control “munitions” were used to disperse the protesters, but no tear gas.

Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury released a statement at midnight, saying a small group of protesters had set fire to the Office of Community Involvement.

“This is the heart of our county, where people in our community come to get married, get their passports, and celebrate their cultural traditions and diversity,” the Oregonian website quoted her as saying, adding the space is dedicated to community members “marginalized by the traditional political process.”

Police said on Wednesday an officer sustained a minor injury and there were two arrests, one on charges of rioting, unlawful use of a weapon and assaulting a public safety officer, and another on charges of criminal mischief and reckless endangering.

A crowd of several hundred people gathered in the city’s Colonel Summers Park late on Tuesday before marching through Southeast Portland streets, eventually arriving at the Multnomah Building, police said.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr came under fire from Democratic lawmakers earlier this month for sending federal officers to disperse protesters in the city.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on Tuesday called for the Department of Justice to prosecute a group of people caught on videotape beating and kicking a man who crashed his truck near protests in Portland.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Portland Police says officers targeted with ‘powerful green laser’ in protest

(Reuters) – Portland Police said on Tuesday some of its officers had been targeted with a “powerful green laser” capable of causing permanent eye damage when some 200 protesters marched on the Portland Police Association (PPA) building late on Monday.

However, they said in a statement the protest largely passed off peacefully, with no injuries and no arrests. A smoke canister was used to help officers leave the scene safely.

The police had warned the protesters on Monday evening that they would use tear gas if the crowd attempted to enter or damage the building.

“Failure to follow this order may subject you to the use of crowd control agents, including, but not limited to tear gas and/or impact weapons,” the police said in a tweet on Monday night.

“Anyone participating in criminal behavior, including burglary and/or vandalism, are subject to arrest and/or citation.”

In Portland, some demonstrators have previously attacked a federal courthouse and others have gathered to speak out against racism and police brutality following the May 25 death of George Floyd.

Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr came under fire from Democratic lawmakers earlier this month for sending federal officers to disperse protesters in Portland.

The police statement on Tuesday said the PPA building had been defaced with a large amount of graffiti. It also said somebody had broken through protective plywood covering and also broken a window. The amount of damage was not yet known.

“The crowd remained for several hours in the street, but they were otherwise peaceful”, the police said.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Gareth Jones)

Hong Kong police raid on newspaper filmed in real time as China flexes muscles

By James Pomfret

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Six weeks after China imposed sweeping national security laws on Hong Kong, police moved in on media tycoon Jimmy Lai, one of the most outspoken critics of Beijing in the city.

Lai, 71, was whisked away from his home early on Monday morning by national security police, part of a citywide operation that also saw eight other men arrested, including several of his senior executives.

Then, just before 10 a.m., hundreds of police descended on Lai’s corporate Next Digital headquarters, where his flagship Apple Daily is produced and published.

Staffers said they asked police what legal grounds they had for entering. But these questions were largely ignored as more than 200 police streamed in, according to a live feed of the unfolding drama.

Apple Daily’s Editor-in-Chief Ryan Law, who was helping film and comment on the Facebook live feed, could be seen rushing about the building as he tried to report on events breaking in his own newsroom.

“This is, I believe, the first time in Hong Kong that police have initiated a mass search on a media outlet like this,” he said, panting, as he scaled a back staircase with a colleague to get around the mass of police officers.

As news of the raid spread, more than 10,000 people tuned in, watching as Law defied police warnings to stop filming.

The newsroom was lightly staffed at the time.

But the few employees there, some clad in shorts and sneakers, were told to produce identity documents and register with the police. Some demanded to first see a search warrant.

Some desks were festooned with poster art in support of pro-democracy protests last year, and the Umbrella movement of 2014. One read: “Who’s afraid of the truth!”

More police began arriving, and fanned across the newsroom, following by Law as they meandered through the unmanned cubicles in scattershot fashion, lifting a paper here, plucking a folder from a cabinet there.

“What is the scope of your search area?” one voice was heard shouting off camera. A male officer replied that such inquiries should be put to his supervisors.

Several executive offices, including Lai’s, were sealed off with a red cordon and guarded by police.

PREPARED FOR RAID

Two months before, in an interview with Reuters in one of those sealed rooms, Lai said he was bracing for just such a day: shifting assets abroad and making preparations with lawyers.

“Everything will be piled on us,” he had said.

At around 11 a.m., police led the crew-cut Lai into his office in handcuffs. When he went to the toilet, an entourage of around 20 officers followed. Several other senior executives were also shown being taken into the building.

The police said in a statement that they had a court-issued warrant for their search, and that the nine men had all been arrested for suspected national security law violations, including collusion with foreign powers.

The police did not reveal the names or any specific charges for any of those arrested.

The raid, though expected, rattled some staffers.

Months before the law took effect, the newspaper had shredded documents, uploaded digitized files to overseas servers and safeguarded sources, two senior reporters told Reuters, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the situation.

“I had prepared myself mentally for this,” one said. “But emotionally I feel a little conflicted. It’s happened so quickly. The government is finally taking this drastic step to destroy the city’s media freedoms.”

Police carted 25 boxes of evidence from the building and blocked reporters from other outlets from entering.

Senior police on the scene tried at one point to prevent Apple Daily reporters working at their desks, but relented upon fierce objections from staff present.

Law, Apple Daily’s chief editor, said the paper would continue to be published no matter what.

“Business as usual,” he said in a text message to Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Greg Torode and Jessie Pang; Editing by Gerry Doyle and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Mass looting breaks out in Chicago; shots fired, 100 arrested

(Reuters) – Chicago police exchanged gunfire with looters and arrested more than 100 people after crowds swarmed Chicago’s luxury commercial district early Monday, looting stores, smashing windows and clashing with officers for hours, police said.

Police Superintendent David Brown called the outbreak “pure criminality,” and Mayor Lori Lightfoot sought to distance the incident from the “righteous uprising” in response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police on May 25.

“This was not an organized protest. Rather this was an incident of pure criminality,” Brown told a news conference.

At least 13 officers were injured, and a security guard and a civilian were struck by gunfire, Brown said.

Social media images showed storefronts bashed in and people fleeing stores with arms full of goods, with much of the action taking place along Michigan Avenue, the upscale commercial district known as the Magnificent Mile.

People were drawn by a number of social media posts encouraging looting in central Chicago after tensions flared following the police shooting of a man with a gun, Brown said.

As police questioned a 20-year-old suspect, he fled, firing at the pursuing officers, Brown said. Police returned fire and shot the man, who was hospitalized and expected to survive.

“After the shooting, a crowd gathered. … Tempers flared, fueled by misinformation as the afternoon turned into evening,” Brown said.

In response to the social media posts, police sent 400 officers into the area, where they were met by caravans of people arriving in cars, Brown said.

As officers arrested one man carrying a cash register, shots were fired at them from a passing vehicle, and police fired back, Brown said.

Brown pledged a police crackdown in central Chicago, assigning officers to 12-hour shifts and canceling days off.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta and Aishwarya Nair; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)

Portland has night without tear gas as feds withdraw

By Deborah Bloom

PORTLAND, Ore. (Reuters) – Portland had its first night in weeks without tear gas after state police took over from federal agents guarding a courthouse that has been the focal point of violence between protesters and tactical officers.

The agents withdrew under a deal between Oregon’s governor and U.S. officials to end a deployment that sparked a standoff between Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic mayors over the use of federal officers in their cities.

A few hundred people demonstrated outside the federal courthouse until around 2 a.m. when they left of their own accord, according to a Reuters reporter. On previous nights they had been dispersed with tear gas and other munitions fired by federal agents.

“Things went a lot better last night, last night was the first night in about two months that our officers and agents inside the federal court building there in Portland didn’t come under a direct and immediate threat of being burned alive,” said U.S. Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, whose Border Tactical Unit officers have been among Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents in Portland.

Oregon State Police said around 100 of its officers took over security at the courthouse with some regular Federal Protective Service agents remaining.

DHS agents remain on standby in the city and National Guard troops could be sent in should state police be overrun, DHS Acting Secretary Chad Wolf told Fox News after Trump threatened such action on Thursday

Separately, a DHS spokesman said Wolf had ordered an intelligence unit to stop collecting information on American journalists covering protests in Portland, Oregon, after a media report on the practice.

The Washington Post on Thursday reported that the department compiled “intelligence reports” on journalists using a government system meant to share information about suspected terrorists and violent actors.

(Reporting by Deborah Bloom, Andrew Hay and Lisa Lambert; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Dan Grebler)

U.S. police forces experiment with cameras mounted on guns

KING CITY, Calif. (Reuters) – Amid demands for more police transparency after the killing of George Floyd, U.S. police departments are experimenting with a new way of capturing potentially deadly moments: putting small cameras on their guns.

The police department in King City, California last month became the state’s first force to mandate cameras on all its officers’ handguns.

“With (the) public’s responses to officer-involved shootings, I really felt it was important to have that perspective of what the officer most likely can see and the best point of view to see that from is the barrel of the handgun,” said Robert Masterson, King City police chief.

The cameras, about the size of a thumb, are mounted along a rail on the bottom of a firearm’s barrel and automatically record when the gun is drawn from the holster.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2016, almost half of U.S. law enforcement agencies had acquired body-worn cameras. The use of gun-mounted cameras, however, is far less common and the numbers less known.

Minnesota-based Viridian Weapon Technologies, said more than 500 agencies across 47 states are in various stages of trialing or implementing its gun-camera system, which is aimed at supplementing images from police body cameras.

The gun camera was used in a case in Texas earlier this year to prosecute a suspect who became involved in a shootout with an officer in April 2019. Video from the body camera showed the officer’s arms in front holding the gun, whereas video from the gun camera showed the pistol’s point-of-view.

The gun camera would not be useful in cases of alleged police brutality where a gun is not drawn, and Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, warned that there were limitations to the technology,

“Even when a gun is drawn, they’re not going to capture the context of events leading up to the point where the officer draws their gun and often that is the most crucial part in evaluating an officer’s action and whether that was abusive or professional,” he said.

(Reporting by Nathan Frandino; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

As federal deployment looms, Chicago mayor calls for end of violence

By Nathan Layne

(Reuters) – Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday called on witnesses to come forward with information about an overnight gunfight at a funeral, a day after she said she would welcome help from the FBI and other federal agencies, but not a “Portland-style deployment” of “unnamed agents” to her city’s streets.

Lightfoot spoke a day after gang members opened fire at a funeral on Chicago’s South Side and attendees fired back, injuring 15 people. Two of those shot are in critical condition, while the other 13 are expected to recover.

The mayor, a Democrat, also detailed a separate shooting on Tuesday of a 3-year old girl by two men who fired into the car she was in with her parents. The girl was shot in the head but is in stable condition, police superintendent David Brown told the same news conference.

The violent flare-up could provide fodder to President Donald Trump and his Republican allies, who have sought to promote a law-and-order message ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election. Critics say the administration is seeking to divert attention away from its widely criticized response to the coronavirus pandemic, one of the reasons he is trailing Democratic challenger Joe Biden in opinion polls.

Trump threatened earlier this week to send FBI and other federal agents to Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Detroit, Baltimore and Oakland, California, to help local authorities crack down on a surge in violence in recent weeks. Earlier this month, U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr announced a program known as Operation Legend to provide federal help to law enforcement officials in Kansas City, Missouri, where murders have spiked.

The launch of that program has coincided with the deployment of agents drawn from other federal agencies to Portland, Oregon, to protect a courthouse from weeks of protests over racial justice. In that action, unidentified federal agents have been accused of pulling protesters into unmarked vans, a possible violation of their civil rights.

Trump was scheduled to deliver remarks about Operation Legend later on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Lightfoot said she would take Trump to court if he sent unidentified federal agents to her city.

“The Trump administration is not going to foolishly deploy unnamed agents to the streets of Chicago,” she said as she outlined plans for an influx of identified agents from the FBI and other agencies to combat crime. “We have information that allows us to say, at least at this point, that we don’t see a Portland-style deployment coming to Chicago.”

Chicago has seen an explosion in violence this summer. There were 116 murders over the 28 days through July 19, an increase of nearly 200 percent, police department data shows.

Police superintendent Brown blamed turf battles among the roughly 117,000 gang members in the city of 2.7 million people, where one shooting begets another in an endless cycle of revenge.

“This same cycle repeats itself over and over and over again. This cycle is fueled by street gangs, guns and drugs,” he said. “Too many people in Chicago have been touched by gun violence.”

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday that he told Trump that his state was able and prepared to handle a spike in crime in New York City, noting that he had not declared a public safety emergency.

“And since the state hasn’t made a declaration, I don’t see why there’s any reason why the federal government should take action,” Cuomo said in a call with reporters, adding that Trump agreed with his assessment.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut and Maria Caspani in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. police unions approved for millions in pandemic aid

By Reade Levinson and Chris Prentice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – At least six police unions qualified for a combined total of $2 million to $4.4 million in emergency U.S. government loans intended to help small businesses stay afloat during the coronavirus lockdown, according to data released Monday by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The unions represent about 110,000 law enforcement officers in Philadelphia, Houston, New York state, Michigan and 11 Southern states.

All told, the six approved loans make up a small fraction of the program’s $521 billion in lending across 4.9 million loans as of June 30. The data released on Monday does not specify whether the loans were disbursed or if the unions will qualify for loan forgiveness.

Intended to help small companies and non-profit organizations keep their work forces employed during the coronavirus crisis, the federal Paycheck Protection Program allows employers with 500 or fewer workers hurt by the economic fallout of the pandemic to apply for a forgivable government-backed loan.

The six police unions typically receive 90% of their revenue from membership dues, according to tax records reviewed by Reuters, and thus, barring layoffs, would not be hurting for cash. All six unions have work forces of their own, providing support to members. Their combined loan applications said they sought to retain 331 jobs.

Four forces with unions that received loans – the New York State Police, Philadelphia Police Department, Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office and Houston Police Department – told Reuters they had not laid off or furloughed any employees during the pandemic, so their unions’ dues collections should not have suffered any significant hits.

It is clear the loan program, overseen by the Small Business Administration (SBA), gave out funds with few limits on who would benefit, said Liz Hempowicz, director of public policy at the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight.

“The onus was on the SBA to ensure we’re not just throwing public funds at entities that don’t need them,” she said. “It is common sense we’d prioritize the industries that need it most, and I don’t know that’s police unions right now.”

James Miller, spokesman for the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, said the union sought a loan in anticipation of potential revenue losses and possible layoffs amid prison closures. The union, which represents about 26,000 employees and retirees, qualified to borrow between $150,000 and $350,000.

“Based on current revenue projections for the remainder of the year, we anticipate returning the loan, as it is the prudent thing to do,” he said, in an email to Reuters.

The other police unions approved for loans did not return repeated emails and calls seeking comment.

Qualifying for a loan of between $1 million and $2 million was the Southern States Police Benevolent Association, which represents about 58,000 federal, state, county and municipal law enforcement officers in eleven states. The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police, which represents 14,000 active and retired Philadelphia police officers and sheriff deputies, qualified to borrow between $350,000 and $1 million.

Authorized to borrow between $150,000 and $350,000 were the Police Officers Labor Council in Michigan, which represents about 350 sheriffs and police departments; the Houston Police Officers’ Union, which represents 5,300 Houston Police Department officers; and the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Home Association, a separate non-profit that maintains a lodge for union meetings.

The police unions were among at least 117 public and private sector unions that applied for loans through the program. The SBA did not release the names of recipients of loans less than $150,000.

The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, which represents about 900,000 members across industries including teaching, performing arts, hospitality, manufacturing and construction, said in an email Wednesday that it received $267,000 and plans to ask for loan forgiveness.

Many affiliate unions represent industries that have laid off members as a result of the coronavirus, Rick Bloomingdale, Pennsylvania AFL-CIO president, said in an email. Faced with declining dues, he said, the union decided to seek aid.

“We made the decision to apply for the loan to keep our people employed.”

(Reporting by Reade Levinson in London and Chris Prentice in Washington, D.C.)

U.S. civil rights groups protest ‘out-of-touch’ Justice Department police commission

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Prominent U.S. civil rights groups are refusing to appear before a Justice Department law enforcement commission set up to recommend ways to increase respect for police and reduce crime, calling it out of touch with public anger over policing.

The Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice was established in January, before the latest wave of mass protests over police use of force against Black Americans set off by the May killing of George Floyd.

Its mission statement did not mention racial disparities in criminal justice or address excessive use of force by police, and unlike a similar Obama administration commission, its members represent only federal, state and local law enforcement, with no civil rights advocates, defense attorneys or even big-city police departments taking part.

Civil rights leaders told Reuters they only received invitations to testify after the NAACP Legal Defense Fund sued the commission in April, contending it was violating federal open-meeting laws and lacked diverse viewpoints. That case is pending, and the Justice Department has asked a federal judge to have it dismissed.

“It is so completely out of touch with what is happening,” said Kanya Bennett, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.

After the protests over Floyd’s death began, the commission held some hearings about the excessive use of force and community policing, but they were announced with little advanced warning and were closed to the public. President Donald Trump has struck a strict “law-and-order” tone in his response to the protests.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said the commission would be addressing the issues outlined in a police reform executive order signed by Trump in June including “accreditation and how to assist law enforcement and communities in their response to homelessness, addiction and mental health.”

The commission is expected to release a report in October offering recommendations for decreasing crime, addressing mental health and homelessness issues, and promoting respect for police officers.

‘SHAM COMMISSION’

U.S. civil rights groups including the ACLU have refused to attend the hearings, submitting only written testimony.

“The ACLU is not going to participate in a sham commission that was formed for the sole purpose of promoting a ‘blue lives matter’ narrative,” Bennett said.

Commission Chairman Phil Keith said at a June meeting that of the nearly 30 civil rights and other advocacy groups invited to testify, only a handful accepted, including the North Carolina-based Racial Equity Institute and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL).

Deena Hayes-Greene, a co-founder of the Racial Equity Institute, said she learned other groups had declined invitations at the meeting she attended. Norman Reimer, executive director of the NACDL, said he was cynical about the commission but thought it was important to express his group’s views.

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund said it had not received an invitation to participate.

The commission “fails to consider … the long and fraught history of police community relations, especially in Black and brown communities and the nexus between unconstitutional policing and the violations of civil rights,” said Sakira Cook, director of the justice reform program with the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Seattle police clear protest zone after flares of violence

By Lindsey Wasson

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Seattle authorities moved on Wednesday to dismantle a protest zone that the city’s police chief derided as “lawless and brutal” and which had prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to call for action against demonstrators.

Officers, clad in helmets and extra protective gear, entered the “autonomous zone” early and by mid-morning had arrested 31 people for failure to disperse, assault and other alleged crimes, according to the police department’s Twitter feed.

Police moved to retake the zone after Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan declared the gathering around the police department’s East Precinct and Cal Anderson Park an “unlawful assembly,” the police chief, Carmen Best, said in a statement that highlighted a recent spate of shootings and the deaths of two teenagers.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr commended Best in a statement for distinguishing between the right to protest and violent crime in “restoring the rule of law.” Barr did not mention Durkan, a Democrat who has been a target of the Republican president’s ire.

Harry “Rick” Hearns, a protester who said he volunteered to provide armed security at CHOP for 24 straight days, told Reuters he supported the police crackdown “1,000 percent.” He blamed the violence on outsiders who he said had marred an otherwise successful month long occupation.

“We don’t represent violence. People brought that to us,” said Hearns, 59.

Police were walking in and out of the East Precinct on Wednesday, re-establishing control. Weeks earlier, they abandoned the building following clashes with protesters in the wake of the May 25 killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of that city’s police.

Floyd’s death triggered a nationwide wave of largely peaceful demonstrations against racial injustice and police brutality, giving rise in Seattle to the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) zone east of downtown.

“The CHOP has become lawless and brutal. Four shootings — two fatal — robberies, assaults, violence and countless property crimes have occurred in this several-block area,” Best said.

Trump has been demanding that local authorities eject the protesters, whom he labeled “domestic terrorists.” Conservative pundits have pointed to the zone in Seattle to support an argument that protests across the country were less peaceful than they were being portrayed.

Black armored vehicles and baton-wielding officers patrolled the perimeter of the area that was barricaded with spray-painted plywood, some marked with phrases like “All Lives Don’t Matter Until Black Lives Matter” and “RIP E Precinct.”

Bicycle police employed three dozen bikes to create a barricade at East Pike and 12th Avenue, allowing city crews to take down protesters’ tents. Some officers sipped Starbucks’ coffee, evidence the operation had met no serious resistance.

The zone had become less crowded and active over the past several days. Crowds that came by the thousands to listen to speeches about police brutality and marvel at street art commemorating Black lives had disappeared, as had medic stations and multiple free food tents.

Businesses in the area, a trendy neighborhood of hipster bars and boutiques, have been pushing for a tougher stance by authorities. Attorneys have filed two class action lawsuits against the City of Seattle, including one aimed at preventing the establishment of “lawless autonomous zones” in the future.

Lencho Williams, who was roused by police from the CHOP encampment on Wednesday, said protesters would regroup. He said the movement had become disorganized when three original demands — defund the police, fund the Black community and amnesty for demonstrators — morphed into 12.

“We’re going to be back. If not tomorrow, the next day. You can’t stop a revolution. Black lives matter now and forever,” said Williams, 32.

(Reporting by Lindsey Wasson in Seattle, Barbara Goldberg in Maplewood, New Jersey and Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Steve Orlofsky, Bernadette Baum, David Gregorio and Jonathan Oatis)