The Oregonian | By Austin De Dios | July 31, 2025
A Washington County human resources manager is suing the county, alleging that it retaliated against her after she raised concerns about potential violations of Oregon’s pay equity laws.
Kasondra Oylear, an employee since 2022, told county officials earlier this year that she believed they were violating Oregon’s Equal Pay Act by failing to compensate workers who hold similar jobs in a “fair and consistent manner,” paying some employees more than others without providing a reason compliant with the law, according to court records.
In the lawsuit, she claims her superiors started treating her differently after she sounded the alarms and that she was put on administrative leave in May.
“Never in a million years did I think I’d be on this side of things,” Oylear told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Oregon law requires that employers pay “equal compensation for equal work” regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation or other factors, according to the Bureau of Labor and Industries. Pay differences between similar positions should be determined by things like seniority, merit, education and experience, according to the bureau. Those qualifications are called “bona fide factors.”
Oylear accused county officials of failing to apply those factors when setting employee pay, court records show. She also accused District Attorney Kevin Barton of unilaterally setting salaries for certain assistant district attorneys — a practice she alleged violated the equal pay act.
The District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the case.
The lawsuit claims the county retaliated and discriminated against Oylear after she continued to press officials on the matter. It says Oylear was excluded from meetings she normally attended, micromanaged and criticized more often. The county put Oylear on administrative leave May 28, saying she may have violated the county’s personnel rules, according to the lawsuit. County officials confirmed her leave on Monday, but did not give a reason.
“It is common knowledge that administrative leave equates to disciplinary action and is a precursor to termination,” the lawsuit said.
The county declined to comment on the lawsuit, but spokesperson Philip Bransford said the county “is committed to providing a fair work environment that is respectful of each person’s dignity and free from all forms of discrimination.”
Oylear is seeking up to $425,000 in non-economic damages, according to court records. She told The Oregonian/OregonLive that she filed the lawsuit to raise awareness about the alleged pay disparities.
“We need to ensure that employees are taken care of and that their pay is being set in a fair and equitable manner,” Oylear said. “I care a lot about this and I wish it didn’t have to come to this.”
“You’re Not Talking Shit Anymore, Are You?”: Veteran Alleges Federal Agents Targeted Him for Assault
Willamette Week | By Aaron Mesh | August 21, 2025
A Marine veteran intends to sue the federal government after twice being tackled to the ground last week by federal agents while protesting outside the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement building in South Portland, he alleged today in a legal filing.
Portland resident Daryn Herzberg, 34, filed a tort claim notice with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Thursday morning. In the filing, he says he was peacefully protesting outside the ICE headquarters on Aug. 13 and 16. On both occasions, Herzberg says, he was not blocking the building’s entrance, but federal agents tackled him to the ground anyway.
Herzberg tells WW in an interview that he has regularly attended protests at the ICE building for several weeks.
“I bring my speaker,” he says, “I play protest songs, and I yell at them—expressing my First Amendment right to tell them that they’re kidnapping our neighbors and disgracing the flag that I fought for. I know that they’re pretty upset about what I had to say.”
Herzberg alleges in the filing that on the night of Aug. 13, he was tackled from behind by a federal agent who “pinned him to the ground and held him in tear gas (or a tear-gaslike substance) for several minutes.”
That description matches an incident captured in a video that has been circulated on social media in recent days, showing federal agents body-slamming a man from behind during a protest. Herzberg’s attorney, Michael Fuller, confirmed to WW that the man tackled in the video is his client.
In the second incident three nights later, Herzberg says in the filing, he was walking away from the ICE building along South Bancroft Street when at least four federal agents tackled him.
“Once he was on the ground, a federal employee, with badge number 6160, grabbed Mr. Herzberg by the hair and slammed his face into the ground multiple times while saying, ‘You’re not talking shit anymore, are you?’ to Mr. Herzberg,” the filing says. “Federal employees also punched him multiple times in the back of the head and face.”
He tells WW that he was detained for three hours in the building before being released with citations. He adds that one of the citations was for tossing a handful of Milk-Bone dog biscuits into the compound’s courtyard (because he says the agents are Trump’s lap dogs).
Herzberg says in the filing that a doctor diagnosed him with a head injury and a concussion, as well as bruising and scrapes on various parts of his body. He has difficulty sleeping because of bruised ribs and shoulders. The legal notice says he intends to seek $150,000 in personal injury claims.
ICE and Homeland Security offices did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the legal notice.
Herzberg tells WW that he believes officers targeted him because they didn’t like being called out by someone who served in the military.
“I know some of them are veterans,” he says. “I am disappointed in them, and I tell them I’m disappointed in them. I think the fact that I’m a fellow veteran does get to them. But it’s also the content of what I’m telling them. They’re getting called out for committing unconstitutional acts, and I don’t think they like that.”
The Thursday filing is the first legal action brought against federal agencies stemming from the government response to a protest against deportations that has occurred most nights for the past two months outside the ICE headquarters on the South Waterfront. Federal prosecutors have charged more than a dozen people with crimes at the site, ranging from resisting arrest to aggravated assault on a federal officer.
Last month, a woman living in a low-income apartment building across the street from ICE sued the city of Portland over noise being made by protesters. Multnomah County Circuit Judge Ellen Rosenblum ruled last week that police are not required to enforce noise ordinances. (Disclosure: Rosenblum is married to the owner of WW’s parent company.)
Coincidentally, Herzberg’s legal filing arrives the morning after President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan quietly visited the Portland ICE headquarters, fulfilling a promise he made on Fox News more than a month ago. The White House remains fixated on an immigration crackdown in sanctuary cities and states like Portland and Oregon.
The Portland mayor’s office confirmed Homan’s visit, first reported earlier today by The Oregonian. Homan “met with sworn and nonsworn personnel at the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement facility on 4310 S Macadam and departed shortly thereafter,” wrote Mayor Keith Wilson’s spokesman, Cody Bowman. “The city of Portland and Portland Police Bureau did not have a role in coordinating the visit.”
The office of U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) says Homan declined Wyden’s offer to debate in a public forum while in Portland. “Can confirm he declined,” wrote Wyden’s spokesman Henry Stern. “But he also never told us he was even coming.”
Border Patrol Agent Found Liable for Pointing Gun at Portland Hotel Worker
The Oregonian | By Maxine Bernstein | August 27, 2025
A judge has found a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent liable for civil assault for pointing a gun at a hotel maintenance man who had arrived at the agent’s room to unclog his toilet.
U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson will hold a future hearing to determine damages.
Agent Joshua Jones was part of a Phoenix-based Border Patrol tactical unit sent to Portland in July 2020 to guard the federal courthouse and other federal buildings during nightly unrest downtown after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Jones was staying in Room 428 at the Residence Inn by Marriott in North Portland and had called down to the front desk to report a malfunctioning toilet.
Christopher Frison, a chief maintenance engineer at the hotel, arrived at Jones’ room about 5 p.m. on July 27, 2020, and knocked several times. Frison also called out “maintenance,” gave his name and waited, holding a plunger, he testified in court.
That’s when “Jones opened the door ready to defend himself and his room,” according to the 22-page opinion released Tuesday.
Nelson found that Frison’s lawyers didn’t need to prove that Jones intended to shoot Frison or cause him physical injury, Nelson found. It didn’t matter if the gun was loaded or not, according to her opinion.
It was clear Jones “intended” to place Frison in fear of imminent harm, she ruled.
“Simply put, that Jones opened the door quickly and pointed a gun at plaintiff is sufficient to establish defendant’s liability for civil assault,” Nelson wrote.
Some discrepancies in Frison’s statements to police and court testimony regarding what he may have said during the encounter didn’t alter the core facts of what occurred, Nelson wrote.
“The Court finds that plaintiff’s testimony regarding Jones opening the door quickly, reaching behind his back, pulling out a gun, and pointing the gun at plaintiff, has remained consistent over time,” she wrote.
In contrast, Jones couldn’t explain what he was doing with the gun before answering the door or whether the gun was loaded, Nelson said.
She cited testimony from a gun instructor called by Frison’s lawyer as an expert witness, William McKnight, who said Jones, an experienced federal agent, was unlikely to carry a gun around “without having a purpose.”
Jones testified that he never pointed his gun at Frison and only held it in his right hand, down at his side with the barrel pointed at the floor.
Jones said he was getting his gear ready after using the room phone earlier to call for maintenance. When he heard the knock about 20 minutes later, it didn’t occur to him that it was a maintenance worker responding, he said.
In an email that a supervisor had him write a few days later in response to Frison’s complaint, Jones said he assumed one of his teammates might be at the door and answered holding a gun.
But during a deposition taken in the civil case in 2022, Jones said he thought a protester might have been outside his hotel room door. “It crossed my mind,” he testified then.
Asked by Frison’s lawyer about the discrepancy while he was on the witness stand during the trial, Jones acknowledged the differences and said, “My teammates seemed the most likely, but I didn’t have any reason to expect them.”
He conceded during his testimony that he had some suspicion that a protester could have tracked him to the hotel room and that “there was potential for that.”
He also said he was prepared “to protect that room” and to defend himself. Yet he said he never looked in the peephole of the room door before opening it and didn’t remember if the gun in his hand was loaded.
According to Frison, Jones was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head when he “swung” the hotel door open, reached with his right hand behind his back and suddenly pointed a handgun at Frison’s chest. He said Jones held his gun in two hands, both arms outstretched.
“What the hell are you doing? What is going on?” Frison said he screamed. “All I could see was the white of his eyes. I could see the anger in his face. I wasn’t there as a threat. I was there as a maintenance worker.”
Frison said Jones pointed the gun at him for 4 to 5 seconds before uttering twice that he “f—– up.”
Joshua Keller, one of the government lawyers representing Jones, had argued that Frison’s recollection of events wasn’t realistic, saying it wouldn’t make sense for Jones to open his hotel door, then reach for his gun and point it at Jones.
Frison’s description of Jones standing with arms outstretched, holding a gun with both his hands, could have been drawn from any action movie, TV show or YouTube video and wasn’t more credible than Jones’ testimony, Keller argued in court.
He said Jones had no intent to harm anyone on the other side of the door and it wasn’t unusual for the agent to hold the gun down in his hand.
The judge’s ruling followed a half-day bench trial in federal court in Portland in May.
Nelson has asked both sides to schedule a future telephone conference with her to discuss when to proceed to the damages phase of the case. Frison’s lawyers have not specified a specified amount of damages they’ll seek, but the judge faces a cap of $1 million.
