Man detained, as federal police push protesters in downtown Eugene

Federal police detained a masked man riding an electric bicycle near the federal building during a protest against immigration enforcement held Tuesday, Aug. 26.

Separately, video from later in the day aired by TV station KVAL showed uniformed officers pushing against protesters in downtown Eugene to move them away from a parking lot entrance.

The officers “were unprovoked, and very aggressive and violent in a way that we hadn’t seen before,” Rob Fisette, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, said in an interview with Lookout Eugene-Springfield.

Fisette said a group known as the Lane County Immigrant Defense Network organized the Tuesday protest, the latest in a series of sidewalk demonstrations at the federal building, which houses a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.

The uniformed officers on Tuesday were likely with Federal Protective Services, which is in charge of security at federal buildings. They wore vests with the words “Police Homeland Security,” and vehicles they used were emblazoned with the words Federal Protective Services.

No records were available Tuesday evening about the person detained, but Fisette said he learned through a “support network” the man had been released from custody.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to questions from Lookout Eugene-Springfield about the incident.

Fisette said that some time after the bicyclist was taken into custody, a protester sustained a head injury when an officer “just took a run at them and pushed them into a hedge, and they fell and hit their head.”

Video shown by TV station KEZI appears to show an officer walking near a protester and putting hands on them without breaking stride, then the person falling backwards into a bush. The physical contact appears to take place after protesters had gathered near uniformed officers placing the man who had been detained earlier, seemingly in handcuffs, into a Department of Homeland Security vehicle.

Fisette said the person with a head injury later vomited and possibly sustained a concussion.

Sidewalk protests at the federal building, frequently held once a week during the summer, have drawn crowds of several dozen, and Fisette estimated that as many as 80 people were on hand at any one time Tuesday. Several thousand turned out for a peaceful No Kings rally in Eugene held on June 14 to protest immigration enforcement and the administration of President Donald Trump.

Previously, at a July 1 rally, a protester said a vehicle exiting a secure parking area at the federal building “drove through the crowd of people,” lurching forward and eventually past a dozen or so protesters who had attempted to block the exit. No one was hurt.

Fisette said that at Tuesday’s event he was the person designated to speak with police to address any concerns, but the uniformed officers never talked with him or any of the protesters before using physical force to clear the area near the secured parking lot exit.

The federal building is where legal observers have reported that migrants arriving for ICE check-in appointments — part of their immigration proceedings — were detained and likely transferred to a detention facility in Tacoma, Washington.

Some involved with past protests at the federal building have spoken about disrupting these ICE transfers.

“My general impression of the day is that they were trying to send a message, that they’re trying to intimidate us,” Fisette said.

Fisette said he saw only one Eugene city police officer briefly on Tuesday, who did not intervene. Eugene police have taken a hands-off approach to street demonstrations at the federal building, though some protesters earlier criticized city police for showing up July 1 in response to federal police calling about people blocking the secured parking lot entrance and exit.

Garrett Epps, a retired University of Oregon law professor, said he was at the federal building not as a protester, but as someone seeking to become a volunteer legal observer through the National Lawyers Guild. Some legal observers at the Eugene federal building have provided information about attorney hotlines to those with check-in appointments and also have attempted to track ICE detention activities.

Epps said that at about 11:45 a.m. he saw federal officers — for no obvious reason — suddenly break out in a foot pursuit of the man riding an electric bicycle south on High Street.

“To my knowledge, he didn’t perform any provocative act or yell anything or make any gesture,” Epps said, adding that it appeared the officers reacted to some sort of signal among themselves to begin running after the man. While some were behind the bicyclist, other uniformed officers were nearby at Seventh Avenue and High Street, Epps said.

Epps said he had seen the man previously pass by on the bicycle, with officers giving chase the second time he passed by the building. Epps said the man wore a mask or some sort of garment obscuring his face.

“Mostly I was just concerned for this guy,” Epps said. “I wasn’t able to see what happened when they detained him. I don’t know if he was knocked off his bike.”

Epps said he then saw protesters arrive and begin to taunt the federal officers, asking “are you proud of yourselves” and making other, similar remarks. He called it a “very tense situation.”

“It’s just hard to believe. This is f—ing Eugene, not L.A.,” Epps said, referring to street clashes between police and protesters that gained national attention back in June, with hundreds arrested. “But it’s happening here.”