Late yesterday a federal district court judge, Michael Simon, issued a restraining order to the federal agencies involved in protecting the Federal Court house in Portland.
The order prohibits federal law enforcement agents with those entities from targeting either members of the press or attorney observers from organizations such as the ACLU. Those individuals claimed federal agents intentionally targeted them with pepper spray balls, tear gas canisters, and non-lethal impact munitions even though they had identified themselves as being with the press, were engaged in taking pictures, and had physically separated themselves from protesters to demonstrate they were not participants in the rioting.
So, the Judge’s order boils down to stop doing that. His order does not cover crowd control measures, nor does it address the law enforcement response to rioters. It simply specifies that where the law enforcement agents are able to distinguish the press and observers from the rioters, they should not purposely target the press and observers. His order expressly allows that it is not a violation if the press or observers are inadvertently caught up in crowd control measures aimed at rioters, so the rioters are not going to be able to use the press as shields.
Here are some videos of the Feds following the Judge’s order:
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