"Christopher David, a 53-year-old disabled Navy veteran, was so angry at the sight of federal officers sweeping up protesters in the last few nights on the streets of Portland, Oregon, that he decided to go and talk to them about it.
The city resident, who served more than eight years with the US Navy, got on a public bus on Saturday and headed to a protest in front of the city courthouse in the hope he could ask them some questions.
“I was enraged simply because I did not think they were taking their oath of office seriously or they were compromising their oath of office,” Mr David told The Independent. “So I actually went down because I wanted to talk to them about it.”
His advances were rebuffed, however, and he was the victim of a brutal attack that was caught on video and went viral on Sunday.
In the video, first shared by a reporter from the Portland Tribune, Mr David is seen taking a series of baton blows from a federal agent, without reacting to any of them, before he is finally forced back by pepper spray to the face.
“I stood my ground at that point and just stayed there ... I did nothing provocative. They just started whaling on me with batons, and I let them,” Mr David said.
“I probably could’ve taken a lot more baton blows if they had not sprayed pepper spray all over my eyes,” he added.
The use of federal agents to quell protests in Portland has drawn heavy criticism from local and national leaders. Federal officers from the US Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Department of Homeland Security‘s Federal Protective Service have been deployed to Portland on orders from the Trump administration.
Their mandate was to protect federal buildings, but they have been accused of driving unmarked cars and seizing people from the street in recent days in the city, which has seen nightly protests for racial justice since the police killing of George Floyd."-Independent
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