PORTLAND, Ore. — A Texas man pleaded guilty on Wednesday for assaulting a Deputy U.S. Marshal with a hammer during a downtown Portland protest in July of 2020.
According to court documents, around 1 a.m. on July 11, 2020, Jacob Michael Gaines, 24, used a hammer to create a hole through a plywood barricaded entrance at the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse. At the time, federal law enforcement personnel were staged inside the courthouse to protect it. Court documents say, when they went outside, Gaines hit a Deputy U.S. Marshal three times with the hammer. The deputy was hit in the left shoulder, neck and back, but was able to hold Gaines down while other officers arrested him. Portland police recovered the hammer.
On July 16, 2020, a grand jury indicted Gaines on one count of assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon.
“Mr. Gaines could have killed the deputy he struck with a construction hammer, and we’re grateful to the US Attorney’s Office for seeing this case through to its conclusion,” said Peter Cajigal, the acting U.S. Marshal for the District of Oregon.
Gaines faces up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. He is scheduled to be sentenced on December 13, 2021.
Last summer, protesters held nightly demonstrations in downtown Portland following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The video below is from 2020.
