Why Are the Feds Criminalizing a Clarinetist?

This mom got roughed up at a protest — and has since been charged with assault

The Unpresidented Brass Band plays at a rally outside Portland City Hall celebrating the release of their clarinetist, Oriana Korol

She’s a mother, a musician, and a social worker. The feds are claiming she’s a violent criminal.

The story of how Oriana Korol, a protest-band clarinetist, got arrested, spent two nights in jail, and is now facing a felony charge for assaulting a federal officer might seem absurd if it weren’t so serious — and so emblematic of the ways in which the Trump administration is seeking to criminalize dissent.

The strange saga began on a rainy Sunday in mid-October in Portland, Oregon — where costumed demonstrators turned out in large numbers at the city’s ICE facility, south of downtown. This compound is the locus of what Donald Trump has decried as the city’s “war zone,” from where the president seeks to deploy hundreds of National Guard troops. Despite the wet weather, demonstrators’ spirits were high that afternoon, even before hundreds of disrobed cyclists arrived, following an “Emergency Naked Bike Ride” in opposition to the administration’s anti-immigrant policies.

Contributing to the carnival-like atmosphere that afternoon, the Unpresidented Brass Band played music across the street from the ICE building. A fixture of anti-fascism rallies around Portland, the ensemble buoys demonstrators with its drum- and horn-heavy New Orleans style jams. Adding to the tactical frivolity, many of the band’s members play their instruments dressed up in banana costumes. (The look derives from an ironic version of the “Don’t Tread on Me” banner that the band carries, which substitutes the coiled rattlesnake of the Gadsden flag with a drawing of a slippery banana peel.)

In a recent interview with The Contrarain, Unpresidented’s bandleader, Miles Thompson, described the lead up to Korol’s arrest. The gated driveway to the ICE compound is a frequent flashpoint between federal agents and protesters, and Thompson recalls that federal officials had been “ramping up their aggression” throughout the day, as they cleared demonstrators to allow vehicles to enter and exit the facility. By about 5 p.m., the feds were becoming violent. “The last time they came out I saw a whole lot more aggression,” Thompson says. “One officer shoved someone so hard, they left the ground because they weren’t backing up fast enough.”

Miles Thompson, bandleader

In an instant, the band got caught up in mayhem created by charging federal officers. “We were playing ‘Ghost Busters,’” Thompson recalls. “Suddenly, I see people running by. An officer dive-tackled this person [they were pursuing] into our band and knocked over one of our drummers.” As the violent arrest of this individual was unfolding, the band’s clarinetist, Korol, became an unwitting party to the fracas. “The scuffle was at Ori’s feet,” Thompson says. “She was more or less pinned against the fence.” Then, as Thompson describes it, “another officer came in and they just tacked Ori — and took her into custody as well.”

The arrest of the woodwind player was distressing enough. What happened next added insult to irregularity. Instead of being detained in Portland, Korol was transported across the Columbia River to Washington state, where she was held at a county lockup that the feds sometimes use to hold migrant detainees. Oregon is a sanctuary state that broadly prohibits cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, including at jails. Korol, a U.S. citizen, didn’t require such exotic treatment. Regardless, she was jailed out-of-state for two nights, without a formal charge, over the Columbus Day holiday — before finally receiving a Tuesday court date back in Portland.

Korol, 38, has a master’s degree and is a licensed clinical social worker by profession. She has described herself in public documents as “committed to serving people with low incomes and/or disabilities.” She’s the mom of a preschooler. She does not fit any criminal profile. Yet the government charged her with assault — specifically of kicking and biting an unnamed Federal Protective Services officer, identified in court documents only as the “Adult Victim” or “AV.” The man was wearing a gas mask and riot gear that hid his face.

The federal complaint alleges that Korol involved herself in the action at her feet by attempting to “pull” the arrestee “away from federal officers.” She was subsequently approached by AV — who “pushed Korol away from the arrest… after which she fell,” the complaint says. Once on the ground, it alleges, Korol “brought her right foot back and kicked AV’s left leg.” Later, as she was “on her stomach” being detained by the officer, the complaint adds, “video also shows Korol’s mouth around AV’s right arm.”

The charging document cites a video clip captured by a correspondent for News Nation as evidence. The video has been viewed more than half a million times on X — and you can judge reality for yourself. To this reporter’s eyes, the video shows Korol as the subject of violence instigated by federal officers, with AV being the prime aggressor. The officer shoves Korol to the ground as she struggles to hold on to her clarinet, before he pounces on her back and places her in a headlock. (Chokeholds are broadly prohibited by policy “unless deadly force is otherwise authorized.”) The officer eventually withdraws his arm, but there’s no clear indication of a bite.

The federal assault charges carry a potential term of 8 years in prison. Reached by The Contrarian, Korol’s attorney, Bear Wilner-Nugent, declined to comment on the case, stating that “Ms. Korol respectfully relies upon her not guilty plea to speak for her at this time.”

Korol did give a brief on-camera interview to The Oregonian following her first court appearance and release. She told the news outlet, tearfully, that she was looking forward to being reunited with her 3-year-old child. But she added that the experience of being arrested had left her undaunted: “I feel even more committed to what people are protesting at the ICE building,” she said. Korol did not discuss the particulars of her case, but suggested that she is in good company: “I don’t think I’m the only one getting charges like this at these protests.”

Indeed, the federal government seems to be going out of its way to arrest and charge protesters — and women in particular — on what appear to be trumped-up charges aimed at chilling dissent. This includes one sitting member of Congress, and a prominent candidate for federal office.

In May, Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) was hit with assault charges for allegedly pushing a federal agent outside a New Jersey ICE facility that she was visiting in an oversight capacity. Video of the incident shows forearm contact that wouldn’t be whistled for a foul in an NBA game.

And this week, a congressional candidate and social media influencer, Kat Abughazaleh, was hit with a federal conspiracy charge, allegedly for having “forcibly impeded, intimidated, and interfered” with a federal agent at a recent protest of a Chicago-area ICE facility. “This is political prosecution,” Abughazaleh said in a video Wednesday, “and a gross attempt to silence dissent.”

Rep. Jan Schakowsky — a Democrat who will be retiring from the Illinois seat Abughazaleh is vying for — spoke out in the candidate’s defense, denouncing the indictment as an “alarming abuse of power.”

Schakowsky added a broader defense of demonstrators against the “wannabe dictator,” Trump. “Targeting individuals for exercising their rights is an attack on the very foundation of our democracy,” Schakowsky said. “We must reject any effort to use our justice system as a weapon against free expression.”

Tim Dickinson is the Senior Political Writer & Editor for The Contrarian