Late Friday afternoon, Oregon Federal District Judge Michael Simon granted the ACLU a Temporary Restraining Order against the Department of Homeland Security and the US Marshals Service. 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, while taking action as part of their law enforcement activities around the Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland.
The issuance of the order was met with great fanfare, but the substance of the order is pretty mild. The complaint filed by the ACLU includes anecdotal allegations from several press members covering the riots, as well as people calling themselves observers and not participants in the rioting. 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.
The substance of Judge Simon’s order is, basically, quit 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.
The fact that it got reversed says that the tide is turning. Bigly.
Now they will all be medics.
Won't change the result.
The original order was actually pretty mild:
The fact that it got reversed says that the tide is turning. Bigly.