Portland ICE Protesters Allege That Federal Agents Played Metallica’s “Threatening Dad Rock” At Them Before Arrests

“Enter Sandman” was blasted toward the campers. They did not appreciate it.

(Sam Gehrke)
By Elise Herron

Portland protesters say U.S. Department of Homeland Security officers play odd mind games.

Protesters camping outside southwest Portland's Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility say DHS personnel accosted the camp with high-volume Metallica tunes throughout the night, before making several arrests this morning.

"DHS agents had been trying to arouse and disorient and disrupt protesters over the past few nights," the Occupy ICE release reads. "Threatening dad rock with lyrics like 'sleep with one eye open,' was played at high volume, disrupting protester's rest."

Federal Protective Service spokesman Robert Sperling says the officers were merely having an innocent rooftop dinner.

"I know [officers] were having dinner on the roof last night," he told WW. "If music was coming off the top of the building, that might have been what it was.

"I don't know what was on their playlist," he continued, noting that blasting music at protesters isn't a DHS tactic: "We wouldn't do something like that."

The song the occupiers are referring to is "Enter Sandman"— a 1991 heavy banger that, yes, sensible-shoe wearing dads with former long-haired glory days likely jam out to on the reg.

Is Metallica offended by the feds' alleged use of their song as a mind-fuck tactic? It's hard to say.

"Hi Metallica," Portland freelance journalist Leah Sottile asked on Twitter, "your music was being blared from an ICE building by federal officers at the Occupy ICE PDX protest encampment. Would you like to comment?"

The band did not respond. But plenty of other Twitter users chimed in.

Yes, using "threatening dad rock" as a descriptor for early '90s Metallica is a comical. No, using a song about a mythical figure that puts children to sleep and gives them "dreams of war," and "things that will bite," to upset people protesting immigrant children being stripped from their parents at the border is not.

Other allegations in a protesters' press release? "Agents placed cardboard cut-outs in windows in the building wearing ICE jackets and a large costume eagle mask was placed in one window. Agents were seen making hand gestures of guns and pantomimed shooting at protesters. Agents stood on the roof of the building and mocked protesters. Agents were shining blinking flashlights from the windows of the building overnight, and drones were flown over camp in the early morning."

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