Federal authorities on Aug. 3 arrested a Portland man who allegedly threw a bomb inside a federal courthouse, injuring a U.S. marshal.
Isaiah Maza, 18, faces up to 30 years in prison on charges of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon and damaging federal property.
According to the Department of Justice, Maza was among a group of men on July 22 who removed the plywood protecting the damaged facade of the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse.
After several people tore off the entire plywood structure and someone broke through a window into the courthouse, Maza was seen lighting a fuse on a cylindrical object and throwing it inside the courthouse through the broken window, authorities say. The object exploded near federal agents exiting the building and injured both legs of a deputy U.S. marshal.
More than a week later, on July 31, U.S. Marshals spotted Maza one block from the courthouse and pursued him on foot. He was arrested after the marshals caught up with him several blocks away.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Youlee Yim You on July 3 ordered Maza detained pending a trial. The judge explained the detention by citing Maza’s prior criminal history, violent behavior, substance use, and mental health issues.
Since the beginning of nearly nightly violence in Portland more than two months ago, federal authorities have made 97 arrests and charged 80 people, according to DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec. Authorities have arrested more than 250 people nationwide in connection to the violence at protests and riots that have swept across the nation in the wake of the police-custody death of George Floyd.
On July 31, the Justice Department announced the arrest of another man who had thrown a bomb at the courthouse. The explosive device ignited the plywood protecting the courthouse but did not cause any injuries. The suspect was identified through an online review his grandmother left on a vest the suspect wore to the protest.
After more than 60 days of nightly violence, the scene in Portland has grown more peaceful after local police agreed to cooperate with federal authorities. The protest on the night of Aug. 2-3 was peaceful, according to police officials. The level of violence has also been decreasing in recent days, federal and city officials said, although some rioters on Saturday night had attacked police officers.
While noting that Portland Police had declared the Saturday night gathering an unlawful assembly, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that activity around the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse continued “in an overall trend of diminishing violence as a result of the increased cooperation between state and federal law enforcement.”
“In stark contrast to the intense weekend violence in Portland over the past two months, protests around federal property remained generally peaceful, with minor incidents of malicious activity and vandalism,” the agency said in a summary of the nightly activity.
Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
