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Posted on 08/01/2018 8:04:09 AM PDT by jazusamo
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler on Tuesday denied claims by the union representing Immigrations and Customs Enforcement employees that city police officers would not respond to their urgent calls for service during a recent occupation by protesters.
Through attorney Sean Riddell, the union on Monday criticized the mayor for his laissez faire approach to a protest at the local ICE field office, which lasted five weeks. When the protest began, Wheeler announced that he would not allow Portland police officers to be "sucked into a conflict" over the protest and said federal police would be responsible for protecting their own building and property.
Riddell's complaint was that Wheeler was "forbidding" officers from responding to ICE employees' calls and had "created a zone of terror" for workers at the field office.
Wheeler, in a letter responding to Riddell's charges, said vehemently that the city has no policy of not responding to ICE employees' calls for service. He cast the union's accusations that it does "inaccurate and inflammatory."
The mayor said city police did in fact respond to 911 calls from ICE and Federal Protective Services employees "when there were imminent life safety threats." Employees of those agencies faced harassment and threats during the field office protest.
Wheeler also accused Riddell of being unable to substantiate claims of nonresponsive calls for service.
When informally questioned by a city attorney, Riddell did not assert that Portland police officers failed to respond to reports of imminent life-threatening danger, Wheeler wrote. Asked to back up his earlier claim that officers didn't show up after urgent calls, Riddell apparently cited unconfirmed reports from sources he could not divulge, the mayor's letter said.
Riddell said Tuesday that he "never claimed" the police did not respond to 911 calls. Instead, he said he provided the city with evidence the police did not respond to calls made by ICE employees to the police non-emergency line for "assistance in handling the crowd" at the protest.
Riddell said he still expects Wheeler to make Portland police officers respond to ICE employees' calls the same as they would to anyone else's. Riddell said a lawsuit is possible if the city does not make changes.
"If Mr. Wheeler continues to treat my clients differently than everybody else we will have no other recourse," Riddell said.
The US Bureau of Prisons, should give every newly released prisoner a one way ticket to Portland.
This among everything else should prove we now live in the Soviet states of America.
Who you gonna believe?
This pervert ignorant a****le? or your lying eyes and ears?
Movin' right along...
Benghazi II?
Bet they would have showed up in a hurry of the feds had opened fire on the protesters.......
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Portland Mayor?
Only a brain addled, low-T mushroom taking marshmallow major would believe that loser.
Oh, forgot, those are the folks who elected him.
Oh well, put P-land on the “Future Sh*thole Cities” list.
Not if, but when.
“...would be responsible for protecting their own...”
That’s all I would need to do exactly that.
So the Feds will have to begin to provide their own troops at ICE facilities in the communist states. That is not a good development either. It would seem that the Democrats there should fear that or at least be worried about it but they still think they will be in power soon so boosting federal troops everywhere possible is in their perceived interest. It is what they think they will inherit.
You make a great point.
This twit of a mayor said ICE could use federal police on premises but what about off premises?
The problem was on Portland public property, streets, sidewalks and the illegal camp that Wheeler not only ignored but encouraged.
Can you imagine how he’d have screamed if the feds had sent law enforcement or troops in and put a stop to it, he’d have been apoplectic.
Federal police, if necessary to be used, could not be limited to Federal property
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