More than a dozen mayors from cities across the country have joined Portland in demanding that President remove federal forces from or stop plans to send them to major American cities, calling the crackdown against protesters an “abuse of power.”
In a letter Monday addressed to Attorney General William Barr and Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, the mayors of Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, DC, Boston, Philadelphia, Denver, Los Angeles, San Jose, Oakland, Tucson, Sacramento, Phoenix and Kansas City, Missiouri, call on the administration to withdraw federal forces from the cities where they are currently deployed and halt plans to send them elsewhere, CNN reports.
Protesters and federal agents have clashed in Portland, where protests have lasted more than 50 days. The Trump administration dispatched teams of federal agents to the city, fueling the public’s outrage.
The letter says federal officers have used “significant force” against Portland protesters on a nightly basis, accusing the officers of having “snatched” a person from the street and placed them in an unmarked vehicle and shooting another in the head with a munition.
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“These are tactics we expect from authoritarian regimes — not our democracy,” the mayors wrote.
The letter noted that President Donald Trump threatened to send forces to “clear out” protesters in Seattle and to “clean up” Chicago. The letter also accused federal forces of using “extreme action” against protesters in Washington, DC, without the mayor’s approval.
“The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked a national uprising and reckoning,” the letter said, according to CNN. “The majority of the protests have been peaceful and aimed at improving our communities. Where this is not the case, it still does not justify the use of federal forces. Unilaterally deploying these paramilitary-type forces into our cities is wholly inconsistent with our system of democracy and our most basic values.”
