Did Portland Violate the First Amendment by Selectively Tolerating Violence?

. . . "Journalists yawned when an Antifa goon was given probation by a liberal judge after attacking seven people from behind. The Antifa thug hit his victims so hard with a heavy metal bike lock that one victim had a piece of his “helmet broken off,” and another suffered a “head laceration that required five staples to fix.' ”

Intellectual Takeout

"Portland and its police may have violated the First Amendment by allowing members of the left-wing group Antifa to physically attack people, such as a conservative journalist and an elderly man. Police are not allowed to permit attacks on disfavored speakers, or permit violence by ideologically favored groups, while otherwise enforcing the law. That violates the First Amendment. Police have no duty under the Constitution to protect the public at all. But if they do, they can’t selectively withhold protection from people with disfavored views, or selectively permit violence by a group they ideologically sympathize with. 
. . .
"In Portland, police did nothing as Antifa attacked people nearby. For example, Antifa members viciously attacked journalist Andy Ngo on Saturday at a Portland rally. They assaulted him with fists and milkshakes that may have contained caustic quick-dry cement, sending him to the emergency room. Other video of Antifa shows “a group of masked thugs beating an elderly man in Portland with a crowbar and macing him.”

"Andy Ngo is a photojournalist and editor at conservative-leaning Quillette. As Reason Magazine’s Robby Soave notes, an “antifa mob beat up a journalist … who posed no physical threat to them and was only there to document their activities — on a public street. This is indefensible, and yet there are tons of progressive-leaning people currently defending it, or at the very least rationalizing and making light of it.” It is unfortunate that some progressive journalists have chosen to minimize or excuse this violence, because it was aimed at a journalist for a conservative-leaning publication. (Ngo himself is a gay Vietnamese-American).

"In response to these beatings, people have argued that the City of Portland needs to be sued for allowing (or directing) the police to not protect the innocent. They have criticized the City of Portland and its left-wing mayor, who sympathizes with Antifa, for doing nothing. In response, other people have pointed out that police have no constitutional duty to enforce the law. For example, one lawyer noted that “the Supreme Court upheld that officers have no legal duty to protect you.' ”  . . .