Portland Police Chief Reveals Troops Tear-Gassed Protest by Accident

ICE agents are making Portland worse, not better, according to local law enforcement.

Portland Police Commander Franz Schoening testified in court Wednesday that federal officers had escalated a No Kings protest in the city on October 18—not because of crowd violence, but because one of their own had accidentally shot tear gas onto the roof of an ICE facility, reported Politico’s Kyle Cheney.

That day, federal officers tried to use a launcher to fire tear gas at protesters occupying the ICE headquarters’ driveway. But they missed, and instead sent a can flying onto the roof of the building, where more federal officers were stationed. Those officers mistook the friendly fire for an attack by the protesters, and retaliated by firing tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd, ultimately hurting local law enforcement in the process, according to Schoening.

“The types and amounts of force being used by federal officers is disproportionate to the level of criminal conduct or violence we’re seeing down there,” Schoening said during the first day of a federal trial deliberating the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard to the supposedly besieged city.

The trial, before the U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, is the first instance in which a court weighs in on whether a protest at an immigration facility constitutes a rebellion. Oregon accused the White House in a 41-page legal complaint of having “trampled” the U.S. Constitution by federalizing Portland’s law enforcement, arguing that Donald Trump had legitimately threatened Portland’s peace by “inciting a public outcry.”

Schoening recalled that the city’s anti-ICE protests had been mild in September, but ramped up once Trump got the troops involved.

Rather than rely on data before commanding the National Guard across the country, Trump decided last month to target Rose City after he claimed he witnessed its “destruction” while “watching television.” He then directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to “provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland” in order to defend ICE and his immigration agenda, authorizing the use of “full force.”

Progressive Democratic congressional candidate and former journalist Kat Abughazaleh was indicted by the Justice Department Wednesday for allegedly preventing a federal officer from “discharging the duties of his office” at the Broadview ICE detention center near Chicago.

Abughazaleh and five others are accused of blocking a Department of Homeland Security vehicle from carrying out deportations, banging and scratching on the window.

“It was further part of the conspiracy that Abughazaleh joined the crowd at the front of the Government Vehicle, and with her hands on the hood braced her body and hands against the vehicle while remaining directly in the path of the vehicle, hindering and impeding Agent A and the vehicle from proceeding to the BSSA,” the court documents read. “[Abughazaleh] forcibly impeded, intimidated, and interfered with an officer of the United States.”

Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old Palestinian American House candidate in Illinois’s 9th congressional district, condemned the indictment.

“This is a political prosecution, and a gross attempt to silence dissent, a right protected under the First Amendment,” she said in a video posted to social media Wednesday afternoon. “This is a major push by the Trump administration to criminalize protest and punish anyone who speaks out against them. That’s why I’m gonna fight these unjust charges.”

Federal forces have been particularly violent and confrontational in Chicago, where the Trump administration is carrying out its “Operation Midway Blitz” crackdown on immigration, resulting in shows of dissent from local residents. Abughazaleh herself was body-slammed and beaten by ICE at a previous protest in September. Other protesters in Chicago, such as Reverend David Black and United Methodist Reverend Hannah Kardon, have also been shot at with pepper balls.

“ICE has hit, dragged, thrown, shot with pepper balls, and tear-gassed hundreds of protesters, simply because we had the gall to say that masked men coming into our communities, abducting our neighbors, and terrorizing us cannot be our new normal,” Abughazaleh said.

“This case targets our right to protest, speak freely, and associate with anyone who disagrees with the government,” Abughazaleh added. “We cannot diminish ourselves in the face of these attacks. That’s why we have to unite and stand up for humanity, our rights, and everyone terrorized by Trump’s lawless secret police.”

Abughazaleh and the other five protesters face charges carrying up to eight years in prison if convicted.

FBI Director Kash Patel met his girlfriend at Penn State this past weekend to watch a wrestling match—but his travel to the university stadium appears to have been on the American public’s dime.

Patel made the trek to support his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, who performed a song as part of “Real American Freestyle,” a wrestling promotion co-founded earlier this year by the late Hulk Hogan. The federal law enforcement director was definitely there—Wilkins snapped and posted a picture of him.

While there’s nothing particularly controversial about attending a wrestling match, how Patel made his way to the college has become the focus of some unflattering attention. Former FBI agent Kyle Seraphin noted on X that it was a government jet that arrived at and departed from State College Regional Airport, the runway nearest Penn State, on Saturday.

The jet owner’s listed address, according to its FAA registration, is the FBI’s national headquarters in Washington.

After Penn State, the plane flew to Nashville, where Wilkins lives. The jet’s recent flight log pre–Penn State jaunt also matches Patel’s itinerary, paralleling his travel last week between Washington and Philadelphia, reported The Bulwark.

It’s a bit of a hypocritical development for the former podcaster, who used to regularly chastise government officials for needless spending before joining the Trump administration. He relentlessly hounded the man who previously filled his shoes—former FBI Director Chris Wray—even arguing in 2023 that the FBI should “ground” Wray’s private jet “that he pays for with taxpayer dollars to hop around the country.”

Meanwhile, the government has been shut down for more than 28 days. Thousands of federal workers have gone weeks without pay (not FBI agents), Affordable Care Act marketplace credits have lapsed in several states, some 42 million Americans stand to go hungry when SNAP benefits expire on November 1, and Donald Trump is building a $300 million ballroom.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. admitted Wednesday that he doesn’t have “sufficient” evidence that pregnant people’s use of Tylenol can cause autism in their children.

While speaking about President Donald Trump’s controversial TrumpRx program, Kennedy made a crucial clarification about the administration’s recent claims linking autism to Tylenol, the number one drug prescribed to pregnant patients for pain relief and fever reduction.

“The causative association between Tylenol given in pregnancy and perinatal periods is not sufficient to say it definitely causes autism, but it is very suggestive,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy’s comment came just one day after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Kenvue, Tylenol’s parent company, alleging that it failed to alert consumers that using its product during pregnancy posed a “significantly increased risk of autism” and ADHD. But that claim isn’t true by Kennedy’s own admission.

Several large studies have found “associations” between substantial use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and higher rates of neurodevelopmental disorders in children, but experts have stressed that these studies are not conclusive. During a Cabinet meeting earlier this month, Kennedy cited a number of studies that allegedly support his suspicions about Tylenol but said the existing evidence was “not proof.”

“We’re doing the studies to make the proof,” he admitted—which made the whole thing sound more like a hunch than anything else.

Speaking on Wednesday, Kennedy suggested that pregnant women should consult with their doctors before taking Tylenol, but generally, the Trump administration hasn’t been quite that diplomatic with its recommendations.

In September, Trump seemed to suggest that all Americans should stop taking acetaminophen (though he could hardly pronounce it), especially pregnant women and young children.

“You’ll take a Tylenol, but it’ll be very sparingly. Can be something that’s very dangerous to the woman’s health, in other words a fever that’s very, very dangerous and ideally a doctor’s decision because I think you shouldn’t take it,” he said.

And as recently as Sunday, Trump was still urging people, “DON’T USE TYLENOL UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.

“DON’T GIVE TYLENOL TO YOUR YOUNG CHILD FOR VIRTUALLY ANY REASON,” the president, who has no medical training, wrote on Truth Social.

Toyota has denied President Trump’s recent claim that the company recently pledged to invest $10 billion in the United States.

Trump bragged about the $10 billion figure at least twice during his trip to Asia this week, visiting an American naval base in Yokosuka, Japan, and meeting with the country’s newly minted right-wing Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Tuesday.

“Yesterday I was with Mr. Toyoda in Japan, and he’s just announced he’s gonna spend, uh, they’re gonna spend $10 billion, and they’re gonna build new car plants,” Trump said Tuesday, referring to the company’s CEO, Akio Toyoda. “And they’re gonna build ’em in numerous states, about six or seven different states.”

No such deal has been made, as Toyota made sure to clarify. On Wednesday, company executive Hiroyuki Ueda basically confirmed that Trump was either making it up or mixing it up with a deal from his first term nearly eight years ago.

“During the first Trump administration, I think the figure was roughly around $10 billion, so while we didn’t say the same scale, we did explain that we’ll keep investing and providing employment as before,” Ueda told reporters. “So, probably because of that context, the figure of about $10 billion came up. Therefore, we didn’t specifically say that we’ll invest $10 billion over the next few years.”