After complaint fire chief pulls EMS out of police team during protests
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(Thanks to reader Michael Rehfeld for sending this story to STATter911.com.)
Allan Brettman, The Oregonian:
Portland Fire & Rescue Chief Mike Myers, responding to citizen complaints, has suspended operations of an emergency medical team deployed with police at protests since the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
Myers acted because of complaints that emergency medical technicians were dressed identically to Portland police riot officers with whom they were embedded – though the Fire Bureau employees were unarmed.
A member of a citizens group called Empower Portland spoke last week before the Portland City Council, telling commissioners the group objects to firefighters dressing in police riot gear, which it says sends a message that the Fire Bureau was not impartial at the event. Empower Portland spokesman Standard Schaefer also displayed a photograph of an embedded EMT who wore a patch associated with support of police on his uniform shirt.
Below is the complaint at a March 1 Portland City Council meeting as posted by Blue Lives Matter.
