On Wednesday afternoon, President Donald Trump announced the deployment of “hundreds” of federal agents to various cities across the states with the intention of lowering the crime rate due to the continued protests.
The so-called “Operation LeGend” has been started “successfully” as early as Kansas City, Missouri, according to the president. The operation was named after LeGend Taliferro, a 4-year-old who was shot to death in his home in Kansas City last month. It will now continue in cities like Chicago, Illinois, and Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The dispatching of agents from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (with 100 officers from the Investigations department of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service, ICE) and other federal agencies is, in principle, part of what is happening in recent days in Portland, Oregon, where federal officials, sometimes without identification, are detaining protesters allegedly under the legal umbrella of the executive order issued by Trump to protect monuments.
“In the past few weeks there has been a radical movement to defund, dismantle and dissolve our police departments,” Trump said at a White House event, blaming the movement for “a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, and heinous crimes. of violence. ”
“This bloodshed must end,” he said. “This bloodshed will end.”
More than 2,000 people protested again in Portland yesterday night against police violence and racism, while in Chicago they removed a contested statue of Christopher Columbus, in another gesture that shows that anti-racist claims continue to multiply in the United States. On Thursday night, just hours after a federal court blocked police from repressing or arresting observers and journalists, officers fired tear gas at protesters, who were cornered against city federal courts.
Clashes between protesters and police have become commonplace in Portland since the first protests erupted following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police two months ago. On the other hand, the Chicago authorities removed statues of Christopher Columbus from Arrigo Park and Grant Park after a series of incidents last week when a group of protesters tried to demolish it in the framework of protests against institutional racism in the country. The statue was removed by order of the mayor, Lori Lightfoot.
