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A Marine veteran intends to sue the federal government after twice being tackled to the ground last week by federal agents while protesting outside the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement building in South Portland, he alleged today in a legal filing.
Portland resident Daryn Herzberg, 34, filed a tort claim notice with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Thursday morning. In the filing, he says he was peacefully protesting outside the ICE headquarters on Aug. 13 and 16. On both occasions, Herzberg says, he was not blocking the building’s entrance but federal agents tackled him to the ground anyway.
Herzberg tells WW in an interview that he has regularly attended protests at the ICE building for several weeks.
“I bring my speaker,” he says, “I play protest songs, and I yell at them—expressing my first amendment right to tell them that they’re kidnapping our neighbors and disgracing the flag that I fought for. I know that they’re pretty upset about what I had to say.”
Herzberg alleges in the filing that on the night of Aug. 13 he was tackled from behind by a federal agent who “pinned him to the ground and held him in teargas (or a teargas-like substance) for several minutes.”
That description matches an incident captured in a video that has been circulated on social media in recent days, showing federal agents body-slamming a man from behind during a protest. Herzberg’s attorney, Michael Fuller, confirmed to WW that the man tackled in the video is his client.
In the second incident three nights later, Herzberg says in the filing, he was walking away from the ICE building along South Bancroft Street when at least four federal agents tackled him.
“Once he was on the ground, a federal employee, with badge number 6160, grabbed Mr. Herzberg by the hair and slammed his face into the ground multiple times while saying, ‘You’re not talking shit anymore, are you?’ to Mr. Herzberg,” the filing says. “Federal employees also punched him multiple times in the back of the head and face.”
He tells WW that he was detained for three hours in the building before being released with citations.
Herzberg says in the filing that a doctor diagnosed him with a head injury and a concussion, as well as bruising and scrapes on various parts of his body. He has difficulty sleeping because of bruised ribs and shoulders. The legal notice says he intends to seek $150,000 in personal injury claims.
ICE and Homeland Security offices did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the legal notice.
Herzberg tells WW that he believes officers targeted him because they didn’t like being called out by someone who served in the military.
“I know some of them are veterans,” he says. “I am disappointed in them, and I tell them I’m disappointed in them. I think the fact that I’m a fellow veteran does get to them. But it’s also the content of what I’m telling them. They’re getting called out for committing unconstitutional acts, and I don’t think they like that.”
The Thursday filing is the first legal action brought against federal agencies stemming from the government response to a protest against deportations that has occurred most nights for the past two months outside the ICE headquarters on the South Waterfront. Federal prosecutors have charged more than a dozen people with crimes at the site, ranging from resisting arrest to aggravated assault on a federal officer.
Last month, a woman living in a low-income apartment building across the street from ICE sued the city of Portland over noise being made by protesters. Multnomah County Circuit Judge Ellen Rosenblum ruled last week that police are not required to enforce noise orginances. (Disclosure: Rosenblum is married to the owner of WW’s parent company.)
Coincidentally, Herzberg’s legal filing arrives the morning after President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan quietly visited the Portland ICE headquarters, fulfilling a promise he made on Fox News more than a month ago. The White House remains fixated on an immigration crackdown in sanctuary cities and states like Portland and Oregon.
The Portland mayor’s office confirmed Homan’s visit, first reported earlier today by The Oregonian. Homan “met with sworn and nonsworn personnel at the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement facility on 4310 S. Macadam and departed shortly thereafter,” wrote Mayor Keith Wilson’s spokesman, Cody Bowman. “The City of Portland and Portland Police Bureau did not have a role in coordinating the visit.”
The office of U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) says Homan declined Wyden’s offer to debate in a public forum while in Portland. “Can confirm he declined,” wrote Wyden’s spokesman Henry Stern. “But he also never told us he was even coming.”
