He came to the protest with a question. He left with two broken bones in a confrontation with federal officers that went viral.
Christopher David had watched in horror as videos surfaced of federal officers in camouflage throwing Portland, Ore., protesters into unmarked vans. The 53-year-old Portland resident had heard the stories: protesters injured, gassed, sprayed with chemicals that tugged at their nostrils and burned their eyes.
David, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and former member of the Navy’s Civil Engineer Corps, said he wanted to know what the officers involved thought of the oath they had sworn to protect and defend the Constitution.
So, he said, on Saturday evening, he headed to downtown Portland to ask them.
That night’s protests outside the federal courthouse — the 51st day of ongoing demonstrations since the police killing of George Floyd — began with a line of local moms linking arms and demanding the federal agents stop targeting Portland kids. David, who had never attended a protest before, hung back and watched.
He was trying to keep his distance, he said, as a host of health problems have made him especially vulnerable amid a still-raging coronavirus pandemic. He asked one woman when the feds would show up, but she said it was also her first protest since the Department of Homeland Security deployed tactical units from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to bolster protections for federal buildings and officers in the Pacific Northwest city.
Tensions have escalated in the past two weeks, particularly after an officer with the U.S. Marshals Service fired a less-lethal round at a protester’s head on July 11, critically injuring him.
Just as he was about to leave, David said, the federal officers emerged. They rushed a line of protesters nearby, knocking protesters to the ground. David walked toward a gap in the line, calling out to the officers.
“Why are you not honoring your oath?” he bellowed. “Why are you not honoring your oath to the Constitution?”
An officer trained his weapon on David’s chest as several agents pushed him, sending David stumbling backward. But he regained his center and tried again. Another agent raised his baton and began to beat David, who stood unwavering with his arms at his sides. Then another officer unloaded a canister of chemical irritant spray into David’s face…
Unable to see from the chemicals burning his eyes and blurring his vision, David said, he stumbled into a cloud of gas that made him cough and retch. He found his way to a bench in the park, where a street medic aided him and eventually pulled him away from the advancing officers.
At the hospital, he said, he learned his right hand had been broken in two places.
In the time since, he has been hailed on social media as a hero. Some have dubbed him Portland’s own man of steel, a defender of the city, an anti-fascist super-soldier.
David said he is none of those things.
“It’s just us normal people out there,” he said. “There were a whole group of pregnant moms standing out there linking arms and they got gassed. You hear people like [President] Trump say it’s just a bunch of wacko fringe people in liberal cities who are out there, but no way. We’re all just normal people who think what’s happening is wrong.”
By definition, if you think what’s happening is wrong you are an enemy of Trump and therefore, not worthy of constitutional protections.
I wrote earlier that I think this is Trump’s big ploy to distract his voters from their growing distress over his monumental failure to manage the COVID crisis. He obviously thinks his voters will be impressed by his deployment of untrained, unqualified, stormtroopers into the streets of America to beat the shit out of Navy veterans and deploy gas against pregnant mothers.
I hve no doubt that millions of his biggest fans are thrilled. Many of them are fascists who love this stuff. But I suspect that he’s losing a fair number of his base as he continues to recklessly deploy violence against Americans and ignores the rising death toll from the pandemic. The man is overseeing a tremendous amount of suffering and dying and all he cares about is himself.