Six people allege in lawsuits filed Thursday that Portland police assaulted them, sometimes using batons and pepper spray, during a series of turbulent protests that gripped the city over eight months.

The suits contend that the Police Bureau has become "increasingly militarized in its tactics, deploying droves of officers wearing tactical dress, including helmets, carrying batons and full-body riot shields, and using chemical agents as crowd-control weapons.''

They cite police actions during a protest of a closed-door City Council vote on the police union contract at City Hall in October 2016, a youth-led protest after the presidential election in November 2016, a Don't Shoot Portland and Not My President's Day protest in February 2017 and a counter-protest to the June 2017 Patriot Prayer rally in Terry Schrunk Plaza.

The people allege battery by officers and seek between $10,000 and $200,000 in damages. Several of them were arrested at the protests, only to have their charges dismissed by prosecutors.

Instead of claiming unconstitutional police practices in federal court, the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon and the plaintiffs chose to file the lawsuits in Multnomah County Circuit Court to resolve them faster.

The legal action is intended "to hold the Portland Police Bureau accountable for their violent response to protests in our city,'' said Mat dos Santos, legal director for the ACLU of Oregon.

"Portland police must end its disproportionate response to protests,'' dos Santos said at a news conference with the plaintiffs. "Today we demand from our city and our police that they do better.''

Sgt. Chris Burley, Police Bureau spokesman, said the bureau does not comment on pending litigation, but takes all complaints of alleged misconduct seriously.

The ACLU has released photos and video that captured the plaintiffs' arrests and injuries.

The six people who filed the suits and their allegations:

-- Patricia Barger, 55, alleges battery during the Oct. 12, 2016, protest and is seeking up to $10,000 in damages. She stumbled upon the gathering as she was headed to catch a MAX train. While watching the it unfold from the sidewalk across Southwest Fifth Avenue from the City Hall entrance, she contends Officer Timothy Paolini struck her twice with a baton, first in the chest and then on the forearm, without any warning. At the time, officers in riot gear were clearing demonstrators from the street, but Barger said she was on the sidewalk when she was hit.

-- On Nov. 21, 2016, Kathryn Stevens, one of the founders of Portland's Resistance with her boyfriend, Greg McKelvey, contends an officer struck her in the face as she was being arrested during a march from Holladay Park in Northeast Portland to downtown. Once the march crossed the Burnside Bridge into downtown, Stevens was separated from McKelvey and then spotted him "being escorted by police,'' her suit says.

Stevens, 31, was concerned McKelvey was injured, so she ran up to him and hugged him from behind. At the time, however, McKelvey was being arrested. Without warning, officers pushed Stevens to the ground, she says, and then lifted her up by her jacket, choking her, the suit says. Officers took her and McKelvey to an alley, where one held her down, pushed on her face and taunted her, asking, "Do you like this? Are you enjoying things? You're going to get arrested.''

Stevens was arrested but the charges were dropped.

-- On Feb. 20, 2017, Charles Stubbs, 39, says he was knocked to the ground as officers tried to arrest him during a Don't Shoot Portland demonstration outside the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building. People had gathered to protest the fatal police shooting of 17-year-old Quanice Hayes 12 days earlier during an armed robbery investigation.

Officers, at one point, decided the demonstration, which had spilled into Southwest Third Avenue and was blocking traffic, was illegal and ordered everyone back onto the sidewalk. As Stubbs moved to the sidewalk, officers tackled him, he says. He landed face down beside a bush and then was lifted and dragged into the street and handcuffed by police, his suit says. He was accused of disorderly conduct, interfering with an officer and resisting arrest, but prosecutors dismissed the charges.

-- During the same protest, participant Tristan Romine-Mann, 27, says he was standing by the sidewalk with his bicycle when an officer suddenly grabbed his bicycle and knocked him to the ground. The officer struck him with the bicycle five to six times, his suit says. He was later sprayed with pepper spray while he was on his knees, his hands behind his back.

-- Margaret Zebroski, 67, a retired physician's assistant, was holding a Don't Shoot Portland banner across the street in front of the federal building the morning of Feb. 20, 2017. Officers on bicycles tried to push the protesters back onto the sidewalk, but Zebroski and others held their ground, remaining in the street.

When officers in riot gear arrived, Zebroski returned to the sidewalk and went to help her 75-year-old friend, who got knocked to the ground, the suit says. Suddenly, Zebroski was slammed to the ground by police. One officer placed his knee on the back of her head, forcing her face into the pavement, breaking her nose, the suit says. Charges of second-degree disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and interfering were ultimately dismissed against her.

"All the marchers were dealt with as criminals for the actions of a few,'' she said Thursday. She's seeking $200,000 in damages.

ACLU staff attorney/legal observer Kelly Simon at June 4, 2017 protest becomes plaintiff in lawsuit against police: ‘No Oregonian should be afraid to make their voice heard.’ https://t.co/4J8SLNWsCl pic.twitter.com/N9VYViFdWz — Maxine Bernstein (@maxoregonian) March 8, 2018

-- Kelly Simon, an ACLU staff attorney and legal observer to the June 4, 2017, counter-protests on the perimeter of a Patriot Prayer rally in Terry Schrunk Plaza, contends police fired an impact munition at her leg as she had her back to officers and was walking out of nearby Chapman Square as ordered by officers. Simon was wearing a bright blue ACLU legal observer vest over her jacket that clearly identified her, the suit says.

"The police tactics created a sense of confusion and fear,'' Simon's suit says.

She said she was shot by Portland police in the middle of the day in downtown Portland "doing exactly'' what they asked her to do.

In a letter to the mayor, then-Police Chief Mike Marshman defended the response to the dueling June 4 protests downtown, saying officers needed to wear riot-control gear for protection as demonstrators hurled bricks, fireworks and other objects.

He said police would prefer not to use any crowd-control devices but did use flash-bang grenades to clear the park when they saw bricks, bottles, rocks, ball bearings, marbles, urine balloons, feces balloons, chemical balloons and small explosives thrown or slung at officers and the public using slingshots.

Oregon State Police, who were helping out Portland police, fired pepper-spray balls toward a parking garage that day because people "were advancing up the garage, into a position where projectiles could be thrown, putting the public and police officers at risk,'' a deputy city attorney wrote in response to a separate lawsuit filed over police actions during the June 4 protests.

Police said officers have used tear gas, pepper spray and rubber ball distraction devices during some protests. They also have allowed officers to use "non-lethal force'' without warning in response to specific threats.

Portland's new Police Chief Danielle Outlaw told The Oregonian/OregonLive in October when she first started that she wanted to go through the bureau's training on crowd control herself before she passed judgment on how police have handled city protests.

"I haven't had a chance to do a critical review of past incidents. That's certainly on my radar,'' she said then. "Bottom line is we're here to protect people's First Amendment right to free speech.''

The ACLU's dos Santos said he has noticed some improvements by police at recent protests, but said he also has found people have been more reluctant to take to the streets.

Attorneys from the law firm Tonkon Torp are working pro bono to help represent the plaintiffs.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian