By: AP Staff & Fern Sidman
President Donald Trump is planning to deploy federal agents to Chicago and possibly other Democrat-run cities as he continues to assert federal power and use the Department of Homeland Security in unprecedented, politicized ways.
On Tuesday, it was reported that the DHS is slated to send about 150 Homeland Security Investigations agents to Chicago to help local law enforcement deal with a spike in crime, according to an official with direct knowledge of the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.
The agents, which are generally used to conduct investigations into human trafficking, drugs and weapons smuggling, were expected to stay in Chicago at least two months, according to the official. It’s not clear exactly how they will back up local law enforcement or when they will arrive, but they will make arrests for federal crimes, not local ones.
It’s possible they may be deployed to other locations as well.
A spokesman for Homeland Security said the department does not comment on “allegedly leaked operations.”
In a tweet Sunday, Trump blamed local leaders for violence in Chicago and other cities.
“The Radical Left Democrats, who totally control Biden, will destroy our Country as we know it. Unimaginably bad things would happen to America,” Trump tweeted, referring to his likely Democratic opponent, Joe Biden. “Look at Portland, where the pols are just fine with 50 days of anarchy. We sent in help. Look at New York, Chicago, Philadelphia. NO!”
As for sending in federal troops into New York City, Trump got pushback on that idea on Tuesday from Mayor Bill DeBlasio, a vocal critic of the president and his policies. DeBlasio said he would take legal action against the president if he should decide to follow through on his idea to send federal troops to help quell the increasing amount of crime and violence in New York City since the demonstrations began in the aftermath of the George Floyd shooting.
“I have to start by saying this president blusters and bluffs and says he’s going to do things and they never materialize on a regular basis,” de Blasio said.
De Blasio said that if Trump did send federal officers to New York City, “it would only create more problems. It would backfire, it wouldn’t make us safer, and we would immediately take action in court to stop it.”
The Democratic mayor added, “From my point of view this would be yet another example of illegal and unconstitutional actions by the president. And we have often had to confront him in court and we usually win.”
On Monday, Trump called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to end the recent crime spree in the Big Apple, saying, “if the governor is not going to do something about it, we’ll do something about it.”
What particularly irked Trump was the fatal shooting of Shatavia Walls, 33 of Brooklyn, whose life was snuffed out after she complained about illegal fireworks where she lived.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, the president said, “We can’t let this happen to the cities. New York was up 348 percent, the crime wave. So the governor has to do something about it. And if the governor is not going to do something about it, we’ll do something about it.
“But what’s happening in New York, a place I love — I love New York. Look at what’s going on over there. The woman who was shot because she said, ‘Could you please not light off firecrackers?’ And they turned around and shot her eight times and she died. That’s not our civilization, that’s not about us,” the commander-in-chief told reporters.
“And then the police are afraid to do anything. I know New York very well, I know the police very well, New York’s Finest, and the fact is, they’re restricted from doing anything, they can’t do anything.”
On Monday night, DeBlasio said, “I have a lot of faith in the NYPD but I do not have faith in the notion of just throwing in federal law enforcement for obviously political reasons. That always backfires.”
During an appearance on CNN on Tuesday morning, New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said, “I always thank people for lending assistance, but we have the resources here. I hope I’m being very clear here. We have a lot of obstacles, but we’re going to get out of this — NYPD, New York City residents, leaders all across New York City — together.”
The move to employ federal law enforcement officers in crime ridden cities is Trump’s latest effort to use an agency — created after the Sept. 11 attacks to protect the country from terrorist threats — to supplement local law enforcement in ways that have alarmed critics. Trump has already deployed agents to Portland under the mantle of protecting federal buildings from protesters, drawing intense criticism from local leaders who say they have only exacerbated tensions.
Far from tamping down the unrest, the presence of federal agents on the streets of Portland — and particularly allegations they have whisked people away in unmarked cars without probable cause — has given new momentum and a renewed, laser-sharp focus to protests that had begun to devolve into smaller, chaotic crowds. The use of federal agents against the will of local officials has also set up the potential for a constitutional crisis — and one that could escalate as Trump says he plans to send federal agents to other cities.
Federal forces were deployed to Portland in early July, and tensions have grown since then: first, on July 11, when a protester was hospitalized with critical injuries after a U.S. Marshals Service officer struck him in the head with a round of what’s known as less-lethal ammunition. Then, anger flared again over the weekend after video surfaced of a federal agent hitting a U.S. Navy veteran repeatedly with a baton while another agent sprays him in the face with pepper spray.
Crowds had recently numbered fewer than 100 people but swelled to more than 1,000 over the weekend — and they are once again attracting a broader base in a city that’s increasingly unified and outraged.
Federal agents again used force to scatter protesters early Tuesday and deployed smoke bombs and rubber bullets as some in the crowd banged on the doors of the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse and attempted to pull plywood off the shuttered entryway.
“To the federal occupiers — you’re not welcome here. You have done nothing but escalate tensions and harm our community members. We can handle our revolution ourselves. Go home,” City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly said in a statement Monday.
Larry Cosme, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, said the federal agents were necessary because local forces have “refused to restore order to the city or cooperate with federal law enforcement attempting to protect federal property, personnel, and regain control.”
“At the end of the day, we all have the same mission: to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution and the American people,” he said in a statement. “State and local officials are failing at that mission.”
But constitutional law experts said federal officers’ actions in the progressive city are “unprecedented” and a “red flag” in what could become a test case of states’ rights as the Trump administration expands federal policing.
For days after the death of George Floyd, protests against police brutality and racial injustice in Portland attracted thousands and were largely peaceful. But smaller groups of up to several hundred people have vandalized federal property and local law enforcement buildings, at times setting fires to police precincts and smashing windows. They have also clashed violently with local police.
A constant focus of protesters has been the federal courthouse, which sits in the heart of downtown and is now covered with graffiti and completely boarded up, with only thin slits cut into the plywood for federal agents to use as peepholes.
Portland police used tear gas on multiple occasions until a federal court order banned its officers from doing so without declaring a riot. Now, anger is building as federal officers deploy tear gas against demonstrators instead.
State and local authorities, who didn’t ask for federal help, are awaiting a decision in a lawsuit that seeks to restrain the federal agents’ actions. State Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in court papers that masked federal agents have arrested people on the street, far from the courthouse, with no probable cause and whisked them away in unmarked cars.
Court documents filed in cases against protesters show that federal officers have posted lookouts on the upper stories of the courthouse and have plainclothes officers circulating in the crowd.
Homeland Security has not responded to repeated requests to comment on these allegations but plans a news conference later Tuesday. The department has said that federal agents had lasers pointed at their eyes in an attempt to blind them at one point, saying the city is “is rife with violent anarchists assaulting federal officers and federal buildings.”
Concern about the agents’ actions has again swelled the ranks of the demonstrators, drawing back to the streets many who showed up after Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.
Most prominent among the protesters now are the Wall of Moms and PDX Dad Pod, self-described parents who have shown up each night since the weekend by the hundreds, wearing yellow T-shirts and bicycle helmets and ski goggles for protection and carrying sunflowers.
Some wielded leaf blowers Monday night to help disperse tear gas as they marched down a major downtown street and joined up with several hundred Black Lives Matter protesters in front of the federal courthouse.
“It’s appalling to me, and it’s a unifying thing. Nobody wants them here,” said Eryn Hoerster, a mother of two children, ages 4 and 8, who was attending her first nighttime protest. “It’s bringing a lot of people downtown.”
In Chicago, the president of the local police officer’s union wrote Trump a letter asking “for help from the federal government” to help combat gun violence. The city has seen 414 homicides this year, compared with 275 during the same period last year, and a spate of shootings in recent weeks as cities around the country have seen an uptick in violence.
But Chicago’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot has said she does not want Trump to send agents to Chicago.
In Kansas City about two weeks ago, the Trump administration sent more than 100 federal law enforcement officers to help quell a rise in violence after the shooting death of a young boy there. (AP)
