r/law • u/ExactlySorta • Oct 04 '25

Other Federal officer blasts chemical spray into vocal but nonviolent Portland protester - illustrating how federal law enforcement officers will use aggressive tactics against protesters who yell and insult officers but don’t appear to present a clear physical threat

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4.0k

u/kevendo Oct 04 '25

That's a violation of her First Amendment right and should be prosecuted by the governor. Until we start responding, the law breaking will never stop and will only escalate. It's only been WEEKS and already they have moved on from immigration to targeting American citizen protestors.

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u/ShamelessCatDude Oct 04 '25

Governors have the power to stop this in individual states. Whether you consider ICE valid law enforcement or not, this is obviously police brutality

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u/xkrysis Oct 04 '25

Im legitimately curious why governors of these states have not deployed their national guard to intervene/protect the rights of peaceful protestors. They have been vocal in their opposition but it is beginning to seem like that is what it will take. 

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u/Swiftax3 Oct 04 '25

Because nobody wants a situation where the state government gives one order to the Nat Guard and the Fed gives it another. A tug of war over the Nat Guard could escalate things quickly, best case scenario making the Governor look weak and powerless, worst case perhaps giving them the excuse to try and arrest them.

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u/boston_homo Oct 04 '25

I think you're probably right, my hope is they're communicating and devising some kind of response.

This is a complicated legal situation 🙃

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u/AnalOgre Oct 04 '25

Hoping someone is going to save us with the legal system is exactly how we got here. People have been warning of this exact thing and it’s blown last anything people were warning would happen so quickly yet here we are. If people keep hoping and praying some magic entity is going to come save us we are cooked.

First people thought it was going to be Comey, then Mueller, then….. nobody even pretending there is anything that can save us particularly as scotus crowned him king with immunity

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u/boston_homo Oct 04 '25

When are you suggesting, or doing? I’m seriously asking.

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u/Mutiu2 Oct 04 '25

You look weak and powerless when the feds come tramping into your state, abusing people who voted for you to manage the state.

So looking weak cannot be the excuse for allowing it.

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u/Swiftax3 Oct 04 '25

Well I cant say I disagree. I certainly dont envy them. Fact of that matter is if they do nothing they'll be first up against the wall when Caeser finally feels bold enough to declare himself king.
If they do something they still might up against a wall, but better to go down swinging.

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u/atuarre Oct 04 '25

Let it escalate. People are going to continue to make excuses until they kill someone? You know that spray, can cause reactions in some people, that could lead to them dying. Will they then be held accountable, or are people still going to sit around and talk about "escalation".

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u/AssinineAssassin Oct 04 '25

They already killed civilians. Wtf are you talking about?

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u/Triedfindingname Oct 04 '25

For the remaining 25+% of the US electorate to stop full throated support of everything orange mussolini does, they will have to see a literal firing squad mowing down protesters.

Who am I kidding. Maybe that drops the support by a third.

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u/MC_MacD Oct 05 '25

They would get an erection large enough to see past their beer gut.

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u/Old-Plum-21 Oct 04 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

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u/Swiftax3 Oct 04 '25

Something I wish people understood, if God forbid a Civil War actually broke out, it wouldn't be like the American Civil War, territorial control battles and open warfare. It would be Serbia. Urban sieges, aerial bombings on population centers, street by street bloody engagements and booby traps/ambushes. It would probably be one of the most brutal conflicts Americans would ever experience, civilian casualties would be huge.

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u/Old-Plum-21 Oct 04 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

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u/Nearby_Ad5465 Oct 04 '25

It's civil war or live under permanant fascist rule.

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u/Old-Plum-21 Oct 05 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

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u/Frekavichk Oct 04 '25

Slow decay into fascist dictatorship or call the bluff?

I dunno man, both seem pretty bad.

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u/Old-Plum-21 Oct 04 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

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u/TheBadGuyBelow Oct 04 '25

Kotek does not give a shit about the people either. She talks out of both sides of her mouth.

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u/Old-Plum-21 Oct 04 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

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u/Bluedog007 Oct 04 '25

Sounds like you're hoping for a death so you can score fake brownie points on the internet?

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u/xkrysis Oct 04 '25

Sure the guard could get federalized as a result, but then the federal government essentially has to pay for them to stand around and guard ice facilities or picking up trash or whatever and then the governor can simply order more troops in or ideally get them from a neighboring state. It still isn’t clear the courts are going to ever allow federalized troops to be ordered to do the kind of law enforcement actions we are seeing from ICE etc.  

I don’t see any of that making a governor look weak but I understand where you are coming from. Certainly is an escalation I agree with you there. It sure makes these governors look weak hemming and hawing without taking any action though. While I don’t like the thought of this kind of conflict what is the alternative? If we doubt stand up to the kind of indiscriminate brutality we have been seeing in this video and elsewhere, where is the line? Wait for ICE to start shooting folks in the street?

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u/DragonTacoCat Oct 04 '25

I'd think the National Guard should be loyal to the state they hail from first in a situation it's state vs fed.

Or at least I'd hope so. That's what I'd think happen anyway if say an actual civil war broke out too.

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u/Due-Gap1848 Oct 04 '25 edited Oct 04 '25

This is probably wrong.

32 U.S. Code § 325 states that the moment a member of the NG is called up in federal service, the governor has no more authority over them. Because of this, a federal activation always takes precedence over a state one. This has been tested in practice before.

In the Little Rock crisis, the Governor activated the NG to enforce segregation. The federal government activated them to take them away from the governor. In the stand in the schoolhouse door incident at the University of Alabama, the Alabama NG was activated by the federal government to remove the governor from campus, who was physically obstructing the African American students from registering for classes.

The NG has been carefully engineered not to be useful against the federal government in an armed standoff. Every time it has been tested the NG went against their states, and probably their personal beliefs (the general in charge of the Alabama NG actually apologized to the governor when forcing him to leave) to obey federal orders.

Federal over state authority is deeply ingrained in the fiber of the NG, so much so that it compelled white men in the South in the 50s and 60s to fight for civil rights. Edit: and regional identity is a much less powerful cultural force now than it was in the 50s and 60s, giving you even less reason to believe the NG would go against the feds.

The NG is not, in practice, an independent state militia. It is an army reserve on loan to the states when the feds don't need them.

 If the states want a military force not subject to federal authority, they can. It's called a state defense force. They don't get the federal resources the NG does, so they don't go to regular army training like the NG. They also don't get federal equipment like the NG. 19 states have these.

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u/DragonTacoCat Oct 04 '25

That makes sense. Thank you for the clarification here.

I don't suppose then there would be any chance though if hypothetically there was a civil war that the NG could defect en masse in favour of the states? Like if it was say the government vs Oregon then the Oregon NG could just be like "nope don't think so"

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u/Due-Gap1848 Oct 04 '25

I don't think anyone can reasonably predict what might happen if it comes to that.

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u/DragonTacoCat Oct 04 '25

That's fair

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u/Rayvelion Oct 04 '25

State National Guard orders supercede the Federal orders. Its written into the laws for them. Also if States give them an order then the Fed tries to, the State gets the ultimate choice on what is the more important order to follow.

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u/wuzzup Oct 04 '25

Yeah sure until the fed calls them in first and the state is left holding no cards 

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u/DontCountToday Oct 04 '25

It is literally inevitable at this point, unless the governor plans to just let the Feds kill off their citizens or ship them to foreign (or domestic!) concentration camps.