Members of the federal Rapid Deployment Force in Portland, courtesy of Doug Brown, ACLU of Oregon.

Private Contractor Assisting Feds in Quelling Portland Protests Is Revealed

The security company, working under contract with the Department Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service, was outed in court pleadings

Bill Conroy
8 min readAug 21, 2020

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The identity of the private contractor assisting federal agents deployed in Portland, Oregon, in stemming anti-racists protests in that city has surfaced in court pleadings filed by the ACLU of Oregon.

The contractor is Annapolis, Maryland-based MaxSent — which also does business as CDA Inc., according to a court transcript of a video deposition of Gabriel Russell, a Federal Protective Service (FPS) regional director. The company is licensed to do business in 44 states and also has FPS contracts to provide security personnel to federal properties in at least six states, including Oregon.

Russell, who confirms the company’s identity in his deposition, is in a position to know, given he is overseeing the federal deployment in Portland as commander of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Rapid Deployment Force.

The judge hearing the ACLU case, filed in federal court in Oregon, recently issued a temporary restraining order that blocks “federal agents in Portland from dispersing, arresting, threatening to…

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Bill Conroy
Bill Conroy

Written by Bill Conroy

Bill Conroy is an independent investigative journalist. For more information, check out billconroy.pressfolios.com.