FBI Raids Homes In Northwest—Looks Like They Might Be Targeting Anarchists

FBI agents and local police who are part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force raided multiple houses in Portland, Olympia, and Seattle this morning —but it's still unclear what the authorities were looking for, exactly. UPDATE 7/26: The FBI emailed to note that the news of raids in Olympia and Seattle is not accurate—they served grand jury subpoenas in those cities, but did not search houses. Sorry for the faulty info. /update

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No arrests were made in the raids and the warrants for the searches are sealed, which means they're not public record. The most the FBI will say is the raids are part of an "ongoing violent crime investigation." They issued grand jury subpoenas to individuals in all three cities.

However, the Oregonian talked with the owner of one of the three homes in NE Portland who said the FBI may have been seeking a group of "anarchists" who lived there a year ago and ran an info booth at Last Thursday. In Portland, the three houses raided were 4820 NE 31st Ave, 7129 NE 8th Ave, and 6846 N. Greenwich. It's not clear whether this is related, but earlier this month, police raided the home of Occupy Mayday protesters in Seattle.

KGW has some shots of the agents in the raid. It's a pretty heavy duty squad:

This is a clear example of one of the controversial issues about Portland being a part of JTTF. The FBI can work with police to raid Portlanders' houses, but then not make public any information about it... except maybe include some details in a bare-bones report about their involvement down the line. Until then, we're in the dark.