Exclusive: community observers claim agents have tailed cars, surveilled homes and even ‘falsely arrested’ someone
An anti-crime taskforce ordered byDonald Trumpon to the streets of Memphis has been accused of targeting community observers with widespread intimidation including “immense force”.
Agents have been “retaliating against, intimidating, and harassing” observers attempting to monitor the federal taskforce’s activity, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) ofTennessee, which alleges that officials have tailed cars, surveilled homes and even “falsely arrested” a community observer.
The ACLU filed a lawsuit this month againstTennesseestate and federal officials administering the anti-crime initiative.
Additional declarations filed on Thursday by six community observers detail “cowboy tactics” they say have been used in recent months, from bumper-riding their cars in unmarked vehicles and pretextual traffic stops to an arbitrary arrest.
The taskforce waslaunched last Septemberby Tennessee’s Republican governor, Bill Lee, following an executive order by Trump, who cited the persistently high rate of violent crime in Memphis. Lee promptly activated the national guard and flooded his state’s second-largest city with more than 2,000 state and federal police officers.
The US Marshals Service declined to comment on the ACLU’s allegations that agents and officers have targeted activists attempting to monitor the taskforce. Gadyaces S Serralta, director of the service, chairs the taskforce.
Hunter Demster, lead litigant in the case, alleged that police officers surveilled his home, and the homes of other activists who had been trying to observe the taskforce’s activities.
He described an alleged incident in which a masked agent driving an unmarked black Ford Expedition sped up and swerved toward him while he was standing near a grassy median. The vehicle turned sharply as it approached, missing him by two inches, he said in his declaration.
In another alleged incident, an agent Demster had not previously met addressed him by name from the loudspeaker of a truck.
Source: Drudge Report
