A veritable alphabet soup of federal law enforcement has been deployed in Washington, D.C., amid large peaceful protests against racial injustice and police brutality and adjacent acts of vandalism — FBI, DEA, DHS, ICE, CBP, TSA, plus the Secret Service, U.S. Marshals, U.S. Park Police, National Guard, Military Police, and active-duty troops. But "Washington residents have also been confronted with a number of other heavily armed law enforcement officers who share an unexpected characteristic: Neither their affiliation nor their personal identities are discernible," The Washington Post reports.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed to NBC on Wednesday evening that it has sent prison riot police to Washington at Attorney General William Barr's request, and "they do not carry badges and are not wearing BOP-specific clothing as they are serving a broader mission." Law enforcement veterans are leery.
"The idea that the federal government is putting law enforcement personnel on the line without appropriate designation of agency, name, etc. — that's a direct contradiction of the oversight that they've been providing for many years to local police and demanding in all of their various monitorships and accreditation," former New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton told the Post. "If those officers engage in any type of misbehavior during the time that they are there representing the federal government, how are you to identify them?"
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Along with accountability concerns, not having identifiable uniforms might prompt dangerous confrontations between different branches of federal police or with protesters. "You can have this weird thing where you have these militia group guys just dressed up in their gear, which they like to do anyway, show up and just start pushing protesters around," explained former FBI agent Clint Watts. "And if you're a protester, you don't know if you have to respond to this person."
-
France makes first arrests in Louvre jewels heistSpeed Read Two suspects were arrested in connection with the daytime theft of royal jewels from the museum
-
Trump pardons crypto titan who enriched familySpeed Read Binance founder Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty in 2023 to enabling money laundering while CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange
-
Thieves nab French crown jewels from LouvreSpeed Read A gang of thieves stole 19th century royal jewels from the Paris museum’s Galerie d’Apollon
-
Arsonist who attacked Shapiro gets 25-50 yearsSpeed Read Cody Balmer broke into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion and tried to burn it down
-
Man charged over LA’s deadly Palisades Firespeed read 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht has been arrested in connection with the fire that killed 12 people
-
4 dead in shooting, arson attack in Michigan churchSpeed Read A gunman drove a pickup truck into a Mormon church where he shot at congregants and then set the building on fire
-
2 kids killed in shooting at Catholic school massSpeed Read 17 others were wounded during a morning mass at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis
-
Australian woman found guilty of mushroom murdersspeed read Erin Patterson murdered three of her ex-husband's relatives by serving them toxic death cap mushrooms
