Trump Removes Federal Agents From Portland But Expands Operation Legend

The Presidential election is in less than 100 days, and by many accounts America is in crisis, reeling from a pandemic that has claimed more than 150,000 lives and social justice protests where demonstrators and federal agents in some cities have been pitted against each other. 

In Portland, Oregon President Donald Trump agreed today to remove the agents he sent to “secure the tensions”, but instead the decision had inflamed tensions. Agents tear-gassed Portland mayor, Ted Wheeler, who sided with protesters and gathered with them to support. He demanded the removal of federal agents.

As the turmoil made headlines around the world, Traci Scott Johnson watched from her home on the East Coast. Johnson moved from Portland almost four years ago but remembered the area as “aggressively liberal which is why the protests continue.”

Johnson’s assessment of the city rings true with white protesters joining the Black Lives Matter movement,and in some instances, forming a “Wall of Moms” to defend Black protesters from law enforcement. 

“I always said that the Portland culture will protest the opening of an envelope, but they take their inclusiveness very seriously,” she stated.

Damany Igwe, who has attended dozens of protests, told The New York Times that white protesters have shielded him from police.

“White people can’t understand what we’ve been through completely, but they are trying to empathize,” he said. “That’s a beginning.”

According to Wheeler, Trump’s decision to send federal agents to Portland had political overtones, a charge echoed by Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot whose cities have also seen an influx of federal agents as part of Operation LeGend, named for four-year-old LeGend Taliffero who was shot and killed earlier this month in Kansas City. The Department of Justice rolled out the plan to “fight violent crime”, and today DOJ announced the expansion of the deployment to include Detroit, Cleveland, and Milwaukee.

Civil Rights organizations have described the Operation as a “federal occupation” of Democratically-controlled cities.

Lucas said, “To suggest otherwise is to try to not just dog whistle but, frankly, dog bark about racial politics. It’s to try to divide our community and our country. It’s totally unnecessary and it doesn’t help us solve a single violent crime incident.”