The Speaker of the House, the person who will assume the office of the presidency if something happens to the president and the vice-president, has now referred to duly sworn, full-time employees of the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Marshals Service, and other federal agencies as “stormtroopers.”
Unidentified stormtroopers. Unmarked cars. Kidnapping protesters and causing severe injuries in response to graffiti.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) July 18, 2020
These are not the actions of a democratic republic.@DHSgov’s actions in Portland undermine its mission.
Trump & his stormtroopers must be stopped.
Merriam-Webster defines “storm trooper” as “1: a member of a private Nazi army notorious for aggressiveness, violence, and brutality; 2: one that resembles a Nazi storm trooper.”
I know that ours is an age of increasing hyperbole and of verbal recklessness, but for Speaker Pelosi to use such language about federal employees strikes me as incredibly irresponsible.
If it turns out that federal law enforcement officers and agencies have acted inappropriately in their response to the nightly demonstrations and occasional riots in Portand, then, of course, they should be brought to account. But even if it turns out that the agencies in question have exceeded their authority by picking up and temporarily detaining protesters suspected of vandalism, the Nazi comparison is grossly inaccurate and demeaning. For elected officials to call federal officers “stormtroopers” should be viewed as beyond the pale.
Many U.S. federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies use unmarked vehicles for undercover work, to enforce the law, and to protect officers.
Last week in Portland, Mark Pettibone was detained temporarily by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), “The CBP agents identified themselves and were wearing CBP insignia during the encounter.”
Pettibone was read his Miranda rights, asked a few questions, which he refused to answer. Then he was released.
“They drove him to the federal courthouse and placed him in a holding cell, [Pettibone] said. Two officers eventually returned to read his Miranda rights and ask if he would waive those rights to answer a few questions; he did not. Almost as suddenly as they had grabbed him off the street, the men let him go.”
— WaPo : https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/17/portland-protests-federal-arrests/
According to the Wall Street Journal:
"Officers from agencies including the U.S. Marshals Service and a Border Patrol's special operations unit now patrol federal properties downtown, including the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse a block from the Justice Center."
"A protester who was near the Justice Center early Wednesday morning said she saw people dressed in camouflage in an unmarked van with Florida plates pick up protesters several times. People have posted videos of similar incidents online."
"A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said that Customs and Border Protection agents had picked up a person in one such video who was suspected of assault against federal agents or destruction or federal property. The CBP agents were approached by a 'large and violent mob,' the spokesman said, and removed the suspect for further questioning."
Some questions still remain unanswered. Was Mark Pettibone a peaceful demonstrator, as he claims, or did he engage in assault on federal agents or destruction of federal property?
Maybe he’s totally innocent and he was wrongfully arrested. That’s certainly possible. Maybe he did something violent that justified his detention. We don’t know yet.
Certainly we should be concerned about unaccountable police actions taken against innocent civilians. But it’s still too early to know if that’s what happened here.
If the federal officials and the agencies they work for were in the wrong, they should be prosecuted and punished. But does this really sound like the stuff of “stormtroopers”? Nazis would have beaten the detainees into confessing and then have locked them away for good or shot them.