More than a dozen people have been arrested on federal charges for their alleged conduct in the ongoing protests at a federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon. The Department of Justice announced Friday that 18 people had been taken into custody and charged with offenses ranging from assaulting a federal officer to arson to creating a disturbance. The protests, ongoing since May, attracted nationwide attention after unidentified federal law enforcement officers used unmarked vans to detain protesters. The officers also deployed tear gas against the city’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, on Thursday evening. Wheeler has said he does not want the federal forces there. The protests have already been the subject of several legal showdowns. The same day the DOJ announced the arrests, a federal judge denied a request from the state’s attorney general that federal agents be barred from “unlawfully detaining” protesters. Another federal judge issued an injunction against federal agents using force against journalists and legal observers.
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