M.D. Kittle writes for the Federalist about the latest investigation from the federal Justice Department.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon sent a message Friday to the anarchist-abetting Portland Police Bureau (PPB) and Portland’s leftist city attorney: unlawful policing will not be tolerated.
Dhillon, who heads up the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, said her office has launched an investigation into Portland law enforcement after Antifa thugs allegedly attacked independent reporters during increasingly violent riots at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Facility in South Portland.
Police arrested Nick Sortor on Thursday on disorderly conduct charges following an altercation with the leftist protesters. Earlier this week, Post Millennial reporter Katie Daviscourt said she was assaulted with a flagpole while covering the nightly mayhem at the ICE building.
In her letter to Portland Police Chief Bob Day and City Attorney Robert Taylor, Dhillon demands answers about the Portland Police Bureau’s handling of the incidents, specifically the “use of its policing powers in a manner that may be based on viewpoint discrimination.” It also suggests that the city may not be living up to its agreement with the Justice Department to cease activity that “deprives individuals of rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution or federal law.”
On Friday afternoon, Dhillon posted on X that the Civil Rights Division, at the direction of Attorney General Pam Bondi, launched the probe into Portland’s “highly questionable police practices.”
“We will not leave the people of Portland at the whims of criminals and woke cops. Govern yourselves accordingly!” the assistant AG vowed.
Sortor’s arrest was caught on video. He told Fox News’ Bill Melugin that he was “jumped by Antifa thugs” just before Portland police removed him from the scene and ultimately arrested him.
“I get back up, I stumble away and go back toward cops where I think, you know, at least, all right, well, maybe that’ll be a safer place for me to go … never suspected that I was going to be the target of the arrest, that they were coming in to me,” he said.
