Protesters who say they were tear-gassed, shot at, pepper-sprayed and assaulted outside a federal courthouse while peacefully demonstrating and rendering aid to others sued the Trump administration Monday over its use of force during nightly demonstrations in downtown Portland. A group of five women and two organizations, including longtime Black Lives Matter protesters and the yellow-clad Wall of Moms group that assembles nightly to stand between protesters and federal law enforcement officers, filed a lawsuit alleging that several agencies — the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Protective Service — have violated their constitutional rights of free speech, assembly and due process and against unreasonable seizures. The agencies named in the lawsuit have deployed agents to protect the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse from a nightly barrage of fireworks and projectiles, including water bottles, canned food and paint, during demonstrations against police violence, racial inequity and what many in Portland have come to view as a federal occupation. (…) Teressa Raiford, 49, the founder of anti-police-violence organization Don’t Shoot Portland, said the chemical irritants have coated food that volunteers at an aid station in the city park across the street from the federal courthouse have served hungry protesters, homeless people and anyone who asks. Raiford said that she has left her downtown Portland home because of all the gas in the air and that she worries about the health consequences of federal officers deploying plumes of a riot control agent called CS gas each night.
via washington post: Wall of Moms, Black Lives Matter protesters sue Trump administration for use of tear gas, force in Portland