A group of over 30 mothers created a barricade to protect hundreds of protesters from federal officers during demonstrations against police brutality in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday.
Videos and photos, which have since gone viral on social media, showed around three dozen moms - dressed in white and wearing bike helmets - linking arms and chanting "Feds stay clear! Moms are here!" and "Leave our kids alone" outside a federal courthouse.
Per Buzzfeed News, the women stood for several hours outside the courthouse before federal officers utilised tear gas and flash bangs to disperse the crowd.
The city has seen increasing tensions after the federal officers were deployed in Portland last week on the orders of President Donald Trump.
Protestors have maintained that the officers are violating civil rights by patrolling the streets in unmarked vans and purportedly detaining demonstrators without probable cause.
The officers have also used tear gas, batons, and non-lethal munitions to disperse protesters who have been demonstrating in the city for over 50 consecutive nights following the death of George Floyd at the hands of law enforcement in Minneapolis.
Floyd, a black man, was arrested by Minneapolis police on Monday, May 25, for reportedly using a counterfeit $20 note in a store. While being detained, ex-cop Derek Chauvin - a 19-year veteran of the force - knelt on his neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds.
Speaking to Buzzfeed News this past weekend, the organiser of Wall of Moms, Bev Barnum, said: "We are about protecting peaceful citizens’ right to protest."
The 35-year-old mother-of-two created the Facebook event last Friday after she was left angered by a viral video that showed two armed and unidentified federal officers exiting an unmarked van, grabbing a person, and escorting them to a vehicle.
"As most of you have read and seen on the news, protestors are being hurt (without cause)," Barnum wrote on a Facebook event page, inviting mothers to join Saturday's protest. "And as of late, protestors are being stripped of their rights by being placed in unmarked cars by unidentifiable law enforcement."
"We moms are often underestimated. But we’re stronger than we’re given credit for. So what do you say, will you stand with me? Will you help me create a wall of moms?"
“We wanted to look like we were going to Target, like normal people,” Barnum continued to BuzzFeed News, explaining that she hoped that their non-threatening appearance would leave the mothers protected. However, she claimed that the group was later tear-gassed by officers.
Barnum has now created a permanent Facebook group to organise more events.
"We’ll be out until no protester needs protecting," she concluded.
Last week, the Trump administration sent officers with DHS, Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Federal Protection Service to the area, despite pushback from Oregan's public officials who said that their presence would ignite tensions in the city.
However, the state attorney general on Friday sued several of those federal agencies for "overstepping their powers and injuring or threatening peaceful protesters on the streets of Downtown Portland," according to an Oregon Department of Justice release, per Buzzfeed News.