Clark County sheriff’s deputies were among the police presence Thursday night in Portland and the agency said they anticipate assisting more tonight and this weekend.
Responding to a mutual aid request from the Portland Police Bureau, 15 members of the County County Mobile Response Team were deployed to respond to help with the protests-turned-riot in downtown Portland.
Sgt. Fred Neiman said that the team is specially trained to deal with large crowds of unruly individuals.
The deployment lasted from about 9:30 p.m. to 3 a.m. and the agency back-filled the vacant patrol deputy positions with off-duty personnel. During the deployment, deputies on patrol were placed on a limited resource plan, responding to only in-progress or violent crimes.
Neiman said that deputies go to the Portland area a couple times a year for large-scale events that would overwhelm any one agency.
“When there’s a big event that taps all the resources of any one particular jurisdiction, we have mutual aid understanding agreement with all the surrounding agencies,” Neiman said. “If we had something that overwhelmed our ability to deal with it, Portland would respond.”