On Jan. 30, the Eugene Police Department declared the ICE Out protest at the downtown Eugene Federal Building a “riot” after someone broke a ground-floor window Friday evening.
The protest was one of many across the country rising up against brutal tactics by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents against immigrants and the Minneapolis shooting deaths by federal agents of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
At the time, the Eugene news media (including Eugene Weekly) reported that protesters broke the window. But today, that’s not so clear. A video taken by Oregon photographer Kate Harnedy has surfaced that suggests a federal officer punched out the window.
The identity of the window-smasher is critical to the event that followed, fueling the information — and potential misinformation — that is spreading to the national media that the Eugene protest had become an actual riot.
President Donald Trump, amid other false claims, charged on Truth Social that protesters had smashed out the window to invade the Federal Building.
It’s more than possible that ICE protesters cracked the window while pounding on the glass. Some protesters had gathered at the front entrance of the Federal Building and later began banging on the windows, several of which eventually broke in multiple places.
But a video, posted on Instagram and Reddit, surfaced Jan. 31 raises questions about who broke the windows at the Federal Building.
The video appears to show a federal officer coming forward and breaking a window. It is unclear from the video if the window was already cracked or broken from the protester pounding on it.
After the window was smashed, federal agents fired pepper balls through the open glass.
While videos from EW and others show other people taking video, other videos have not yet surfaced.
On Jan. 31, Portland FBI announced, “The FBI is seeking information to identify subjects in an ongoing investigation into the breach and damage caused by rioters at the Federal Building In Eugene, Oregon.”