Iler: Feds fight freedom with fire in ‘Little Beirut’

By DON ILER
For the News-Register

Early Tuesday morning, I drove the Line 15 bus through downtown Portland. The smell of explosives and tear gas hung in the air, stinging my nostrils through my facemask. The road supervisor was at the stop at S.W. Fifth and Salmon removing a temporary closure sign. He leaned in my window, “I think there’s still some debris in the street, but it looks OK down there. Have fun driving through a Third World country.”

Yellow tear gas dust, black marks from exploded ordinance covered the streets around the graffiti-laden Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse. People milled around Riot Ribs, the free food pop-up in the park, and trash and debris were strewn in the streets.

Just another day in “Little Beirut,” a nickname given to Portland by former President George H.W. Bush.

Portland has felt like a dystopian fantasy the past week. President Trump deployed federal law enforcement officers to the city, against the wishes of local officials, to supposedly protect federal property. Since their arrival, they have shot a man in the face, assaulted protestors, snatched people off the streets, throwing them into unmarked vans, and shot off countless canisters of tear gas. Their arrival only increased the size of protests, which had begun to run their course after months of unrest.

Last Friday, my wife and I joined the protest at the Justice Center. We listened to speeches, hip-hop performers, danced a little and walked around. We stood in the park, across the street from the Federal Office, when federal agents dressed in military uniforms, gas masks and body armor suddenly stormed out of the building. “Go home!” we shouted, and “We don’t want you here!” Someone shouted, “Traitors!” I yelled, “Go back to Alabama!”

Just as quickly as they appeared, and without provocation, the shooting started. Flash bang grenades exploded. The agents pepper sprayed protestors in the face and charged with batons across the street. Tear gas canisters were hurled at the crowd. I heard the pitter-patter of rubber bullets shooting. I coughed from the gas and tears streamed down my wife’s face as we backed away from the cloud. As suddenly as they appeared, they left, like it had all been a show at a totalitarian carnival.

I was furious. How could a country I served for in the Marines trample our rights to peaceful assembly and free speech?

We returned Saturday night. The crowd was even larger, skewing somewhat older and more diverse. We chanted and marched in front of the courthouse. Again, suddenly and without warning, agents appeared from the courthouse and ran up Main Street. They shot off flash bangs, tear gas, rubber bullets. Mothers linked arms and stood in the street. The agents dispatched by the president attacked them with pepper spray, hit them, pushed them to the ground. My wife yanked at my arm to pull me away from the fracas. A veteran wearing a Navy sweatshirt and hat — the soon to be famous “Captain Portland” — stood there with his hands up. The feds repeatedly hit him with their batons and sprayed him with pepper spray.

After what I had witnessed Friday night, it didn’t shock me. “They don’t care you’re a veteran,” I said to my wife, “they don’t care; doesn’t he know they don’t care?” We walked away coughing from the gas, terrified we would be batoned next as they stormed up the street. We passed the burned-out plinth of the elk statue, my wife unable to see until we flushed her eyes with water.

The federal agents don’t care who we are as a city or a state. They disregard our constitutional rights as Americans or Oregonians. They aren’t here to serve or protect us. They don’t care if you’re a mom, a veteran, a taxpayer, a good person, a citizen or not. They are here to inflict fear and damage. I’m not sure where it’s going, but from what I saw last weekend, no one seems safe and it could get worse. Maybe it’s too late, maybe it won’t matter, but I am out there protesting because I have to act now before it is too late for our democracy.

On Friday, after the tear gas was shot and the crowd was backing away from the gas, I walked into the street toward the agents by myself. I yelled in rage at them. I was so angry as a veteran seeing my city turned into a war zone by my own government. Why did I serve to protect and defend the Constitution, my country, my home, my freedoms, if it is just going to end up like this, in a cloud of bullets and gas, with screaming and pain on American soil perpetrated by Americans?

I am so angry.

I will be back out in the streets until they are gone. Otherwise, this will continue to resemble some Third World banana republic run by a tyrant.

Don Iler is a former news editor of the News-Register now living in Portland with his wife, Amelia, where he drives for Tri-Met. He was raised in Bend and served five years in the Marine Corps as an Arabic linguist. Later, he studied history at Oregon State University and served as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper.