An employee of a Portland jail feels as though local politicians didn’t care about the well-being of her and other employees amid riots “until the feds showed up.”
An anonymous Portland jail employee, given the name Jennifer Styles, spoke with Reason in an interview published Thursday to shed light on what it was like to work in the jail while protesters vandalized federal buildings and rioted in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
“Up until the feds showed up, it didn’t feel like anybody cared,” said Styles. “Most staff felt like we were left out to be eaten because we never knew when the politicians were going to say, ‘You know what? You’re all on your own.’ That’s what it’s felt like, like [Portland Mayor Ted] Wheeler and [Oregon Gov. Kate] Brown have completely hung us out to dry.”
“They’re more and more anti-police. They’re basically tying [the hands] of all the tactical teams as to what they’re allowed to do to protect themselves and to protect us. But you know, there’s no rationale to, ‘Hey, go ahead and spend millions of dollars destroying these buildings while blocking human beings inside and setting things on fire so they potentially can’t escape,’” she added.
Styles said many of the rioters feel they can get away with causing destruction because they’ve become accustomed to not being arrested.
“We hear on a regular basis, ‘We’re just protesting! We haven’t done anything criminal; we’re not doing anything violent,'” she said. “Tearing apart all the fencing, blocking people — mothers, fathers, husbands, whatever — in a building and then trying to either smoke us out or set us on fire? And all they’re going to get is a slap on the wrist. Their lives and their rights are more valuable than ours.”
Portland has been plagued with repeated nights of riots, vandalism, and destruction of property since May. Just this Monday, three Federal Protective Service agents may have been left permanently blind after protesters attacked them with lasers as they attempted to break into a federal courthouse.
“The fact is that these people, the agitators, are very organized,” Styles said. “You catch them at night livestreaming on either Twitch or YouTube or Periscope, and you can hear them talking about what tools they need to bring the next night so they can dismantle this or that block and make it harder for the officers to get out.”
President Trump deployed federal law enforcement officials to the city last week to stem the violence.
“The governor and the mayor and the senators out there, they are afraid of these people. That’s the reason they don’t want us to help them,” Trump said on Monday. “They’re afraid. … I really believe they’re actually, maybe even physically afraid of these people because what they’re doing is incredible.”
Congressional Democrats and local leaders have criticized Trump for sending federal police officers to Portland, painting it as a move to create a police state.
“That kind of activity is the activity of a police state, and this president and this attorney general seem to be doing everything they possibly can to impose Gestapo activities in local communities, and that is what I have been warning about for a long time,” said South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn. “I do believe that this election is all about the preservation of the greatest democracy that this country has ever known.”
Wheeler has repeatedly condemned sending federal officials into the city and signed a letter with other mayors demanding the president remove such law enforcement officials from cities.
“It is concerning that federal law enforcement is being deployed for political purposes,” the mayors wrote to acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and Attorney General William Barr this week. “The president and his administration continually attack local leadership and amplify false and divisive rhetoric purely for campaign fodder. Their words and actions have created an environment of fear and mistrust.”
Styles told Reason she can retire from her position at the jail in two years, but in the meantime will have to hear of the crimes protesters commit.
“I have to talk to these people who have committed the crimes, and they have no concern over other human beings,” she said. “And then I see all these people out here demolishing our building and wanting to kill officers. And it’s the same thing; they have no concern over human life. How is that any different?”
