Who Are They? Unmarked Security Forces in DC Spark Fear

The presence of unmarked federal law enforcement officers, dressed in paramilitary uniforms and wearing no identifying insignia, quickly spread among protesters marching through Washington, D.C.’s streets on Tuesday and Wednesday, causing concerned protesters and officials to ask: Who are they?
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Two such clad security members in Washington on Tuesday night identified themselves to Defense One as part of a specialized emergency response force run by the Bureau of Prisons — part of the Justice Department — to help maintain security at correctional facilities. They and others are part of what’s known as the bureau’s Special Operations Response Teams, or SORTs. NPR reported on Monday that Attorney General Bill Barr had ordered BOP to send its specialized riot response teams to assist with the local D.C. law enforcement with the civil unrest that has engulfed downtown Washington this week.

On Wednesday, protesters, former national security officials, and legal analysts raised alarms about the refusal of these units to identify their specific agency, and the legal authority under which they are operating. Some critics compared the units to “little green men” — a reference to the unmarked Russian soldiers who appeared in Crimea, Ukraine, prior to its 2014 annexation by the Russian Federation and were compared to the classic plastic toy soldiers. A few of the personnel in Washington on Tuesday wore patches identifying them as BOP or SORTs, but many did not.
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Legal analysts have raised questions about what statute authorizes BOP’s use in civil law enforcement efforts. Those nitty-gritty rules dictate what kind of authority the units have — like the power to arrest citizens, for example. That, in turn, dictates how civilians can seek redress for any abuses of power.

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/06/who-are-they-unmarked-security-forces-dc-spark-fear/165892/