Protests at Portland, Oregon, were dying down — until President Trump threatened to deploy the National Guard. Police logs show the unrest was dwindling and “low energy” in the weeks before his announcement sparked a resurgence.

Portland Police Department reports from September directly contradict Mr. Trump’s public statements, and those of his administration, about conditions before he deployed federal troops on September 27. The White House claimed the ICE facility was “under siege,” and on September 5, Mr. Trump called Portland’s protests “unbelievable” and warned of “the destruction of the city.” 

That same day, a Portland police sergeant filed his daily report on the ICE facility demonstrations — painting a different picture.

“Saw 8 people out front and couldn’t even get one of them to flip me the bird,” the unidentified police sergeant wrote. “Very low energy.”

The official logs for the month of September, which were obtained by the Wall Street Journal, show a timeline of key observations made by officers as well as their interactions with the Federal Protective Service, a division of the Department of Homeland Security that was at the facility.

In one incident last month, about 125 protesters with “little to no energy” had marched to the facility, according to the logs, which highlighted that FPS officials were “not concerned. The report also cites how the only newsworthy moment was that a makeshift guillotine had generated “significant media coverage.”

The log showed that many of the protests barely had more than 20 protesters in attendance most days until September 28 — the day after Mr. Trump expressed his plans to send troops to the Pacific Northwest city — when 200 demonstraters had shown up to protest in front of the facility. The next day, it dropped to 60.

“The fact is that the Federal Protective Service memo from a select few nights does not paint the full picture of these violent riots outside the ICE facility in Portland, Oregon where violence has been ensuing and escalating for months,” the Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, Tricia Mclaughlin, said in a statement to the Journal.

Earlier this week, protesters mocked the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, by appearing at anti-ICE demonstrations in inflatable animal costumes.

The phenomenon gained widespread attention after footage circulated on social media showing a protester in a bright green inflatable frog costume standing in front of armed federal officers. The self-described “anti-fascist frog” quickly became a viral symbol of resistance. “Portland frog scares Trump goons into submission,” one X user quipped.

A federal judge in Oregon recently blocked Mr. Trump’s plan to send National Guard troops from Texas and California to Portland after the same court denied the administration’s request to send the state’s own troops to the city.

Judge Karin Immergut, who was appointed by Mr. Trump, issued the ruling on Sunday, just after the Pentagon announced that 200 California National Guard members had been redeployed to Portland.

She said during an emergency hearing that there was no evidence that recent protests in the city warranted the presence of federalized troops and said deploying military forces to suppress unrest without Oregon’s approval threatened the state’s sovereignty.

The ruling will remain in effect until October 19.