In what Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler dubbed both an “egregious overreaction” and an "urban warfare" tactic, federal authorities subjected the mayor to tear gas Wednesday night in their indiscriminate use of violence and scare tactics. “I’m not going to lie—it stings; it’s hard to breathe,” Wheeler told a New York Times journalist. “And I can tell you with 100 percent honesty, I saw nothing which provoked this response. It's nasty stuff. I'm not afraid, but I am pissed off.”
Wheeler, who has bumped heads with protesters critical of the city police’s crowd control tactics, said “a lot of these people hate my guts” but they were united in wanting federal authorities gone. He had said in a Twitter thread earlier Wednesday that he “was made aware of concerns within the community that federal agents may be authorized to use live ammunition on demonstrators this evening.”
“Given the deployment of federal agents to other American cities and the clear escalation of the federal government, this information was alarming,” Wheeler added. “I have spoken with the U.S. Attorney of Oregon, Billy Williams, who assures me that the federal government has no plans to use live ammunition on Portlanders tonight, and that such an order would be unlawful. Nevertheless, I am sharing this information publicly out of an abundance of caution. If you plan to demonstrate tonight, please be safe.”
The mayor has hardly been the only person subjected to the federal government’s violence. When a federal law enforcement officer hit a Portland history professor in the head with an impact munition, she said she refused to let it stop her or to divert attention from Black people killed every day because of police brutality. Maureen Healy, chairwoman of the history department at Lewis & Clark College, marched Monday with other protesters singing songs and chants and listing the names of Black people killed at the hands of police, just as she has done most nights since June, she said in a statement released on Twitter Wednesday.
Standing in a public place amid about a thousand other protesters, Healy said she wasn't damaging property or going beyond the realm of a peaceful protest. She had even taken part in a moment of silence in front of a George Floyd mural. "So why did federal troops shoot me in the head Monday night?" Healy asked. She ventured a guess—“to extinguish these peaceful protests.”
The educator said it didn’t dawn on her until after she suffered the effects of tear gas and was in an emergency room that her government did this to her. "My own government,” she said. “I was not shot by a random person in the street. A federal law enforcement officer pulled a trigger that sent an impact munition into my head."
Volunteer medics rushed her into a van, bandaged her head and drove her several blocks from the violence, at which point her family took her to the emergency room. Healy said what happened to her is “nothing compared to what happens to Black citizens at the hands of law enforcement, mostly local police, every day.”
“And that is why we have been marching. That is why I will continue to march," she added.