The Feds in Portland

 Introduction:

Protests and riots in Portland, Oregon have been going on for months now. Local journalists, as well as journalists from around the country have flocked to Portland to document the disorder. One of the key elements that drew so much national attention to Portland was the presence of federal agents on the city streets, tasked with protecting a federal courthouse near the city center. These agents were typically dressed reminiscent to that of military special forces, and many were equipped similarly as well. This really drew my interest to see exactly what kind of equipment the federal government was employing to try and put down what would be described as an insurrection if it were happening in a less developed country. I've seen a few interesting things that I want to explore a bit more, so lets get into it.

Details:

The squads of federal agents in Portland appear to be operating with mostly batons and crowd-control munitions, with one or two agents being armed with an AR-type rifle. The rifles I've seen in pictures appear to be fairly standardized between different agents. Most of them are a mid-length barrel AR with an MLOK handguard. 

My best guess is that these MLOK handguards are manufactured by Geissele. I say that based on the fact that Geissele was popularly awarded two contracts for the federal government to supply rifles and MLOK handguards. Although these contracts were for USASOC and the FBI, I can only imagine that other federal agencies, such as CBP and ICE, would follow suit.

Another great example of your tax dollar at work is this officer right here. This agent is a member of the US Marshal Service's special operations group. The pistol on his hip is a special configuration of an STI 2011 pistol These are M1911-style pistols chambered in 9mm. 

Source: https://www.guns.com/news/2019/07/24/exclusive-u-s-marshals-special-operations-group-adopts-sti-2011-pistols

These pistols are equipped with Dawson Precision sights and a Leupold Deltapoint Pro red dot sight. A similarly equipped pistol on the civilian market has an MSRP of $1700. This shows that the agents in Portland aren't just normal Marshals and DHS agents that have been pushed into a crowd-control role, they are essentially special forces units that are running the show. One agent actually almost lost his gem of a pistol during an altercation with protestors. The Agent was arresting a protestor, until others from the crowd decided to intervene and push the officer to the ground:

Other agents are seen with more typical equipment. Here we see some DHS officers equipped with a Glock-type pistol and a 10 inch AR-type. The predominance of MLOK rails is interesting compared to just a few years ago when MK18-like picatinny quad rails were in much broader use. 

Conclusion:

Although the police in Portland are very well equipped, they do not have numbers on their side. More than one time, they have been driven back by rioters and cornered in the courthouse. Portland is a very volatile situation. You have two sides that are engaged in a conflict that is increasingly personal. On one side, protestors are inspired to fight back against the people shooting them and their friends with rubber bullets and tear gas. On the cop side, they're fighting less to defend the courthouse and more to avenge their comrades that've been blinded by lasers or injured by fireworks. 

Its hard to imagine an escalation in Portland that doesn't involve shots being fired. Leading up to the election, cities like Portland, Seattle, Chicago, and DC are going to be flash points for political tensions. The long-running American culture war has seen flares in the past, but in this year of craziness, it not hard to imagine things getting crazier.