PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A lawsuit alleging that law enforcement agents sent by President Donald Trump to protect a federal courthouse in 2020 used excessive force against racial justice protesters has been settled, the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon said Tuesday.
The settlement requires the federal government to compensate the individuals who filed the lawsuit for the injuries that federal law enforcement caused them, in exchange for the individuals’ agreement to dismiss the lawsuit, according to a news release from the ACLU. No information was released about specific compensation amounts.
The plaintiffs included three military veterans, a college professor, several Black Lives Matter activists and a man who alleges that unidentified agents snatched him off a street for no reason blocks from the federal courthouse.
“We are proud to have represented our courageous clients,” ACLU of Oregon’s legal director, Kelly Simon, said in the news release. “They suffered serious injuries because of federal law enforcement’s unlawful, aggressive actions, and it is just and fair that they are being compensated.”
Thousands of protesters in Portland took to the streets for months in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, part of a wave of nationwide protests. They at times clashed with police, and militarized federal agents were sent to the city to quell the demonstrations.
The lawsuit alleged that federal agents in Portland exceeded the limits of their authority, making illegal arrests and using tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper spray and other tactics to squelch the protests. Almost all of the plaintiffs alleged physical injuries and some were treated at hospitals, the lawsuit said.
A video of plaintiff and Navy veteran Christopher David’s encounter with U.S. agents outside the Portland courthouse circulated widely on social media. It showed one agent hitting David with a baton and another dousing him in the face with pepper spray. David suffered two broken bones in his hand.
The lawsuit also alleged that the then-acting director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, did not have the authority to send more than 100 agents to Portland because he was improperly appointed. Wolf abruptly resigned from the post in 2021, saying he was compelled to leave by “recent events,” including court rulings that found he could not legally hold the position.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security directed a request for comment about the settlement on Tuesday to the Department of Justice, which didn’t respond.
A federal investigative report later found that the militarized federal agents didn’t have the proper training or equipment and there was no plan for operating without the help of local police.
Local police arrested hundreds of people over the three months of protest and federal agents arrested nearly 100 people at the height of the demonstrations.
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