A lawsuit alleging that police in Portland, Oregon, assaulted journalists at Black Lives Matter protests will now include federal agents as defendants, after the plaintiffs claimed that Department of Homeland Security officers and U.S. Marshals coordinated the response with local authorities.
The ruling, by a federal judge in Portland, comes a day after he ordered a preliminary injunction against the alleged conduct. The plaintiffs include The Portland Mercury newspaper and local magazine photographer Mathieu Lewis-Rolland. The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed suit against the city last month on their behalf, made a request on Tuesday to amend the suit to include the new defendants.
Early on July 12, dozens of federal agents emerged from Portland police headquarters to begin "a campaign of wholesale violence against protesters and neutrals alike," joined later by the local police, according to the revised complaint. Agents shot Lewis-Rolland with "impact munitions" 10 times as he was filming and photographing them, the plaintiffs alleged. They said agents had used rubber bullets, tear gas and batons to disperse demonstrators, reporters and photographers.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf is out to "provoke confrontation for political purposes" and "putting both Oregonians and local law enforcement officers in harm's way," Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, said in a tweet Thursday.
The Portland police, the City of Portland, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Marshals Service didn't immediately respond to an email, calls and voicemails seeking comment on the ruling.
