Violence in Portland diminishes as state police take over for DHS

Violent attacks against federal buildings and police in Portland, Oregon, have diminished in the week since the Trump administration and local officials reached an agreement to increase the state police presence and pull out most Department of Homeland Security employees.

“After weeks of rioting and nightly attacks on federal officers and property, activity in the vicinity of the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse continues in an overall trend of diminishing violence,” a senior DHS official wrote in an email Wednesday. “While violent criminal activity persists elsewhere in Portland, Monday night marked the second straight night during which rioters did not attack federal property or officers.”

The official insisted the decline in violence, which had included commercial fireworks being hurled at federal police, was “directly attributable to the long-awaited cooperation from state and local law enforcement, which assisted with clearing the parks where rioters daily staged their nightly siege.”

On Tuesday night, no major attacks or defensive counterattacks by officers guarding federal buildings were launched, according to DHS. The number of protesters gathered near the Hatfield federal courthouse peaked at 50 people, and those gathered cleared out on their own shortly after midnight local time. No one was arrested, and no law enforcement officers were injured. A couple of blocks away in a nearby park, state police responded to a fight involving 20 people.