January 25, 2021 • 54 mins
For decades, Portland has been one of the USA's most violent battlegrounds between the white supremacist right and the anti racist left. In 2020, after months of anti police demonstrations, American fascists again took to the streets of Portland for what would be one of the bloodiest brawls in its history.
Host: Robert Evans
Executive Producer: Sophie Lichterman
Writers: Bea Lake, Donovan Smith, Elaine Kinchen, Garrison Davis, Robert Evans
Narration: Bea Lake, Donovan Smith, Elaine Kinchen, Garrison Davis, Robert Evans
Editor: Chris Szczech
Music: Crooked Ways by Propaganda
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Episode Transcript
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The Gangster Chronicles podcast is a weekly conversation that evolves
around underworld, the criminals and entertainers to victim's crime and
law enforcement. We cover all facets of the game. Gangster
Chronicles podcast doesn't glorify for motilicit activities. We just discussed
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get your podcast. For most of the last decade, the
(01:41):
city of Portland's national reputation was largely informed by the
sketch TV series Portlandia. The show began airing in two
thousand eleven, right at the start of the relevance of
the word hipster, and portrayed Portland is something of a
stereotypically loony liberal paradise, a place where people know the
names of the chickens served in their restaurants. This image
(02:02):
dogged the city until two thousand seventeen, in the beginning
of the Trump years. For millions of Americans, the first
time they heard about Antifa or saw images of people
in black block was from news footage of the street
fights that grew increasingly endemic to Portland as the Trump
years wore on. But anti fascism has a long history
in the City of Roses, one that goes back further
(02:24):
than the reign of Donald Trump. Rose City Antifa is
the oldest organization in the United States with Antifa actually
in its name. It formed in two thousand seven as
part of a local effort to stop a music festival
from the neo Nazi Hammer Skin Nation. The festival is
supposed to be coming to Portland, and our c A
was successful in stopping it. The organization has continued up
(02:45):
to the modern day. While its members do take place
in street actions to counter fascist demonstrations, the bulk of
their organization's work happens online, revealing and doxing white supremacists
and other fascists. The history of ANTIFA just organizing an
Oregon goes back a lot further than even our c A, though,
as we discussed an episode one, Oregon is the only
(03:07):
state that was founded to be whites only. The clan
had an overwhelming presence here in the nineteen twenties. In
the early twenties, virtually every member of the Portland Police
Bureau was a member. The first president of the Portland
Police Association was a former member of the German American Bund,
an organization established by the Nazi Party. Oregon in particular,
(03:27):
and the Pacific Northwestern General has held a special place
in the hearts of white supremacists for more than a century.
In the nineteen seventies and eighties, the clan saw another
surge and Nazi terrorist groups like the Order carried out
a string of successful attacks. White supremacist ideologus began floating
the idea that the Pacific Northwest might be the perfect
place for a white homeland. The idea was that since
(03:49):
the PMW was already one of the whitest parts of
the country, Nazis would have an easy time moving here
and forcing non whites out through violence. This idea was
most directly pushed by a man named Harold Covington, with
a now defunct Oregon based organization, Volksfront. Covington coined the
term Northwest imperative to describe the white supremacist drive to
(04:10):
conquer the Pacific Northwest. As the Nazis flooded into Oregon, Idaho,
and Washington, anti racists started organizing to oppose them. The
group Anti Racist Action was formed in Portland in ninety
seven and is probably the most direct ancestor to Rose
City Antifa and contemporary anti fascist groups. For years, the
men and women of Anti Racist Action or a r
(04:32):
A battled fascists in the streets. People were sometimes killed
and often grievously wounded. Mike Crenshaw grew up in Illinois,
but moved to Portland in nine he quickly got involved
in anti racist organizing at one of the high points
her fascist violence in Portland history, however, from not really
seeing white folks at all unless they were of authority
(04:53):
to move into white communities where white people were definitely
the majority. Um and not just in was authority, but
also everywhere. So there were there were experiences I had
where we lived in smaller towns in Illinois where we
me and my brother would be like the only black
kids in certain schools, you know, UM, and then Minnesota
(05:15):
often being in a in public ghost restore are being
in downtown, you know, you're one of very two black folks.
So being by the time I was a teenager, you know,
I remember going down tough like to visit people in
Alabama and Mississippi and being afraid that that the clan
was gonna get us, you know, being afraid that if
(05:37):
we were out in the woods at night, that the
clan was gonna get us, because that the racial terror
that was a reality for our people in America was
something that we learned about, you know, and we had
seen pictures of it in magazines, UM, and we or
we might have even known some people directly are indirectly
who've been killed, you know, as a result of racism,
(05:59):
of mom violence or or police mutality or something. So
you know, there's always a sense of fear associated with
this existing here, you know. And that said, being a
teenager on the streets in Minneapolis, I understood that the clan,
you know, since early childhood and being scared in the
night and stuff like that, I understood to them a violent, racist,
(06:21):
racist terror organs. So when I was in the hardcore
punk scene, you know, as a black kid again one
of the only people in that social scene, in that
subculture that was black. UM, when I heard that neo
Nazis were coming around, I had a very visceral reaction
(06:42):
to it. I was like, wait a minute, these people
that hide behind mask and and where she you know,
to consider there, I just see that have been lynching
us for hundreds of years. These people feel comfortable being
part of the community and being out front about it.
So when I heard that, I had a very like
(07:03):
I had almost immediately, I had a militant reaction. I
was like, oh, hell no, that's not that's not acceptable.
And you know, being a young man um and hanging
out on the streets, having already dealt with physical violence
and being ostracized and bullied and beat up. This is
part of being growing up in Chicago. That's the pharm,
(07:26):
you know, um having the fight all the time and
stuff I was. There was no way I was letting
that go down. Mike had moved to town just a
few years after probably the single most defining moment of
the modern struggle against white supremacy in Portland, the murder
of mud Ghetta Sara. Sara was a twenty eight year
old Ethiopian immigrant who lived in an apartment complex at
(07:48):
the intersection of Southeast thirty first Avenue in Pine Street.
His building was adjacent to the building where Nick Heis,
a member of the racist skinhead group east Side White Pride,
also lived. On the night of November, Sara returned from
a party. Nick Heis, Kenneth Miski, and a crew of
other racist skinheads rolled into the same parking lot. They
were drunk and their blood was up from a night
(08:10):
of distributing white supremacist propaganda. The propaganda Miski and his
friends had put up all night belonged to a group
called White Aryan Resistance or War which was led by
the recently deceased Nazi Tom Metzker. At this point, Tom
lived in southern California, but over the last few years
his organization had increasingly propaganda's two disaffected young white men
(08:32):
in Oregon. The goal of Metzger's propaganda was to promote
racial violence, and on the night of November he succeeded.
According to eyewitnesses, Miski and two other Nazis pulled their
vehicle up in front of Sara's parked car. The nazis
girlfriends were also in the vehicle, and they egged their
partners on with cries of let's kill him, let's kill him,
(08:53):
and that's exactly what they did. Miski hit Mulugeta from
behind with a baseball bat and kept beating him after
he dropped, while his fellow Nazis kicked the prone man
with steel toed boots. Muta Sara died of his injuries.
His killers were convicted of murder. They pled guilty and
never faced trial. More As D's, head of the Southern
Poverty Law Center, sued Tom Metzger in civil court and
(09:16):
won a landmark judgment against him. The lawsuit established the
legal precedent that someone like Metzker had what's called vicarious
responsibility for Sara's death because Metzker had good reason to
know that his actions and the propaganda he put out
would lead to violence. The murder of Mula Getta Sara
was a galvanizing moment for the Portland anti racist community.
(09:37):
By the time Mike Crenshaw showed up, everyone knew what
the stakes were. I had a group of friends that
I was hanging with, you know, and we were all
fine with the anti racist skinheads element, and that's what
we wanted to be. And so when we heard these
Leo Nazis had organized themselves with the leaderships on the
Klansman into a gang called the White Knights, we decided
(09:59):
that we were going to confront them, and we did it.
We confronted them. We gave them an opportunity to their abuse.
We said, are you guys white power? And they said yeah,
And we said, look, the next time we see you,
we're gonna ask you again, and if you are still
white powers, then we're gonna suck you up. You know.
That's what happened. Some of them change, some of them,
(10:20):
some of them denounced it. A couple of them actually detected.
But before the one, if that, I became getting of
a long protected period of violence. You know, a few
years went by where we were little fighting baily um
and it was it was, it was, it was heavy man.
In addition to anti racist action, the groups Skinheads Against
(10:41):
Racial Prejudice also confronted Nazis in the streets of Portland.
The podcast series It Did Happen Here, not to be
confused with my own podcast series It Could Happen Here,
documents the story in more detailed than we can afford
to do here. But it's fair to say that the
murder of mo lookd at us a raw informs the
tactics of many anti fascists in Portland to this day.
The basic idea is that if you allow these people
(11:02):
to organize and gather unopposed, they will commit murder. It's
just a matter of time. In two seventeen, after a
solid year of patriot prayer and proud boy gatherings in
the attendant street fights they provoked, Jeremy Christian murdered two
men on a Portland max light rail train. This had
an equally galvanizing effect on the city's anti racists. Things,
(11:23):
of course, escalated further after Charlottesville, and the year two
thousand eighteen in the city of Portland was one of
the bloodiest years of fascist violence faced by any city
in the United States. We prot What's up, guys. I'm
a shop and I am Troy Millings and we are
(11:45):
the host of the Ernier Leisure podcast where we break
down business models and examine the latest transit finance. We
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(12:07):
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The Earnie Leisure podcast is available now. Listen to Earnie
Leisure on the Black Effect podcast Network, I Heart Radio, app,
Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey lead
the listeners take here. Last season on Lethal Lit, you
(12:49):
might remember I came to Hollow Falls on a mission
clearing my aunt best name and making sure justice was
finally served. But I hadn't counted on a rash of
new murders tearing apart the town. My mission put myself
and my friends in danger. Though it wasn't all bad.
(13:09):
I'm going to be a reality tig. I like you,
but now all signs point to a new serial killer
in Hollow Falls. If this game is just starting, you
better believe I'm gonna win. I'm tig Torres and this
is Lethal Lit. Catch up on season one of the
hit murder mystery podcast Lethal Lit, a tig Tara's mystery
(13:32):
out now, and then tune in for all new thrills
in season two, dropping weekly starting February nine. Subscribe now
to never miss an episode. Listen to Leave the Lit
on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever
you get your podcasts. I'm Colleen with joined me the
host of Eating Wall Broke podcast While I eat a
meal created by self made entrepreneurs, influencers and celebrities over
(13:55):
a meal they once eight when they were broke. Today
I have the lovely aj Crimson, official Princess of comfin Asia.
And as we're here on Eating While Broke and today
I'm gonna break down my meal that got me through
the time when I was broken. Listen to Eating While
Broke on the I Heart Radio app, on Apple podcast
(14:15):
or wherever you get your podcasts. My colleague Garrison is
going to take over here to give you an overview
of how the street battles between fascists and anti fascists
evolved from two thousand seventeen on. As Trump ushered conservative
nationalism into the mainstream, the vast mega movement brought street
(14:37):
battles with their political enemies back into vogue. The most
prominent of the far right groups that gathered in Portland
was Patriot Prayer, led by self described street preacher Joey Gibson.
Petriet Prayer formed alongside numerous other far right and neo
fascist groups in to support the candidacy of Donald Trump throughout.
(15:01):
Patriot Prayer put on dozens and dozens of rallies throughout
the Pacific Northwest and especially Portland. While Patriot Prayer rarely
numbered more than a few dozen members, they were capable
in drawing in hundreds of people by allying with militias
like the Three per Centers and street gains like the
Proud Boys, and also explicit white nationalist groups like Identity Europa.
(15:22):
These street demos regularly escalated into violent brawls, with police
almost always taking the side of the far right and
carrying out attacks on anti fascist demonstrators. Here's I was
someone with the Youth Liberation Front explained their entry into
activism and anti fascism. Reminder, we've redubbed the audio with
a voice actor because these children are regularly threatened with murder. Yeah.
(15:46):
I think for me, it was definitely what was going
on in my everyday life that kind of pushed me
to get more involved in politics. I was, I was
working in school and then I heard about Jeremy Christian
killing people on the max I ride home and fucking
then not like really consumed me, and it was integral
and to me, becoming like anti fascist and any racist
and not just kind of pushed my growth into anarchism
(16:07):
and ecology. So I think things happening in my world
around me was the first thing that definitely pushed me here.
Jeremy Christian attended multiple Patriot Prayer rallies before he stabbed
three people and killed two in a racially motivated attack
on Portland's Max Rail on maven. While Christian was eventually
kicked out of a Patriot Prayer rally for openly sig hiling,
(16:31):
the fact that Joey Gibson chose to hold a rally
immediately after the murders suggests that many of their members
may not have disavowed him as much as they claimed.
The far right rallies that immediately followed Christian's stabbing spree
grew ever more violent. Gibson and company used their new
found notoriety to hold events in cities throughout the West Coast,
(16:52):
many of which ended in brawls. Through it all, Gibson
maintained a close relationship with the Portland Police EUO, specifically
Lieutenant Jeff Naia, the previous commander of ppb's Rapid Response Team.
The very same team of quote riot police who would
be responsible for suppressing BLM rallies. In in text messages
(17:15):
from Lieutenant Naia to Gibson found via public records requests,
Lieutenant Naia was showcased giving Gibson information about Antifa during
rallies and instructing Gibson and other Patriot Prayer members on
how to avoid being arrested themselves. At one point, Naia
went so far as to tell Gibson that he and
other officers were trying specifically not to arrest a violent
(17:37):
right wing straight brawler Tiny Toast, who had outstanding arrest
warrants at the time. Naia told Gibson, quote, just make
sure he doesn't do anything which may draw our attention
if he still has the warrant in our system. I
don't run, you guys, so I don't personally know the
officers could arrest him. I don't see a need to
(17:57):
arrest on the warrant unless there is a reason in unquote.
The texts were from seen but only released in February
of nine. Back in June, a rally that was originally
planned to protest police violence turned into an anti fascist
rally after Patriot Prayer announced they would show up to
(18:19):
counter the original protest. After some brawling in the streets,
the Portland Police Bureau arrested multiple anti fascists, but failed
to arrest anyone on the right. This appears to have
been done under orders from Lieutenant Naia. In live stream footage,
officers are seen walking up to and telling Gibson quote,
I just talked to Jeff Naia and he asked me
(18:40):
to tell you that he has probably cause to arrest
a couple of the guys here. They've arrested the other side,
so it's not singling you guys out, but it's time
to go. If you guys can go home, there won't
be any arrests. Two months later, at another opposing anti
fascist patriot prayer slash Proud Boy rally, Portland police munitions
at anti fascists. As they ordered them to disperse. One
(19:04):
of these munitions, a flash bang grenade was launched at
the head of a self described anti fascist, Aaron Anthony
can Too. The grenade split his skull open and embedded
all the way through his bike helmet. Kentu was treated
at the scene by several volunteer street medics and eventually
was taken to the hospital, he suffered a traumatic brain
(19:24):
injury with severe hemorrhaging. Had he not been wearing that
bike helmet, he would have most certainly died. Fast forward
to the start. For the first two months of BLM
protests in Portland, the far right was oddly absent. This
was seen as strange by everyone on the ground. For years,
far right demonstrators had shown up at every possible event
(19:46):
to do violence, but as soon as tear gas and
beatings started in May, those familiar fascist faces were nowhere
to be seen. There were, however, constant rumors of Quote
Proud boys circling the area on Quote, and every once
in a while a random local fascist would show up briefly.
Also during the day, some would wave Blue Lives Matter
(20:08):
flags in front of the j C, but for the
most part, the right wing was mostly absent until August.
August sixteenth start out like any normal day in Portland
during the summer of By this point, the fed war
was over and there were small gatherings and protesters throughout
the city at a different location each night. On the sixteenth,
(20:28):
people were back at the Justice Center. During the afternoon
there were the standard speeches about police abolition and as
the afternoon turned into the evening, people started meandering around.
At around ten PM, a small group who had appointed
themselves as quote protest security attempted to aggressively escort out
someone from the parks around the j C. For unknown reasons,
(20:50):
Quote Security led this person over to the nearby seven eleven,
where they were more or less randomly jumped by someone else.
We should say a bit here about the seven eleven
near the Justice Center. Early in the summer, it had
earned the nickname Comrade seven eleven because the workers inside
repeatedly pulled in protesters to rescue them from police bull
(21:10):
rushes and clouds of tear gas. Unfortunately, as the summer
wore on, the seven eleven became a gathering place for
less savory individuals who coalesced at the fringes of the movement.
Street fights, some involving people tangentially involved in the protests
and others involving drunk people who just wanted to fight,
became an almost nightly occurrence. It was not uncommon to
(21:31):
see puddles of blood in the intersection leading to the
seven eleven, so it was not super surprising that the
person quote Security pulled out of the protest got jumped
near the seven eleven. After getting punched, chased, and tackled,
he ran away, but Quote Security stayed out in front
of the seven eleven. A woman nearby approached them and
(21:51):
asked what was going on. The Quote Security then got
aggressive with her other people near the seven eleven whose
affiliation is unclear, again stealing her stuff a backpack and skateboard.
She then chased people around and tried to pepper spray
the people stealing from her. Videos filmed at the time
suggests that most of the people involved in this fracas
(22:11):
were very inebriated. While all this was going on, another
person arrived at the seven eleven. He parked his truck
outside and attempted to de escalate this tricky situation. A
small crowd of around twenty people formed around the woman
who had been attacked. Upon hearing this woman had Quote
mazed people, the small group got aggressive, a few people
through water bottles. Someone who had been caught in the
(22:34):
pepper spray crossfire ran up and began punching this woman.
Violence waxed and waned for several minutes, and then the
man with the truck repeatedly tried to deescalate the situation. Eventually,
he gave up and got into his truck again, which
made a weird sound and lurched forward after he turned
it on. One of the self appointed security people then
walked up to the driver and began to hit him
(22:55):
through the open window. A couple of people also began
hitting the truck driver his girlfriend, who had walked around
the truck toward the small crowd. While all this was
going on, a much larger BLM demonstration was occurring a
few blocks away. I was there at the time, and
I didn't even know any of this was going on,
but some BLM protesters noticed the commotion and wandered over
(23:17):
to the seven eleven and tried to stop people from
attacking the truck driver and his girlfriend. The driver, still
under attack from his window, repped his engine a few times,
and when the road was completely clear, he drove away,
but he crashed about three blocks away from the seven eleven.
The self appointed security people chased after on foot, and
when they arrived at the crash site, one of the
(23:38):
quote security people pushed the truck driver onto the ground
and stopped him from leaving or walking around. The truck
driver explained that he wasn't trying to hurt anybody, and
this angered one of these so called security people, who
then began punching and kicking the truck driver, who was
already on the ground. The two other self appointed security
tried to restrain this one security guy who was repeatedly
(24:00):
hitting the truck driver, but this agitated security dude was
able to break free and brutally kicked the truck driver
in the back of the head, briefly knocking him out.
Volunteer street medics rushed the scene from the protest a
few blocks away to provide aid. This was a terrible, confusing,
and profoundly avoidable series of events. It had very little
(24:21):
to do with Portland's b LM movement, save that a
small number of self appointed security had been present at
the protest before this brawl started. This is not how
it was presented in right wing media, which portrayed the
whole situation as a mass BLM gang assault on a
white man for no other reason than his skin color.
Much of the disinformation came courtesy of the far right
(24:44):
blogger and social media personality Andy no. No had gained
popularity among the right in the past few years by
writing about the dangers of Muslim immigrants and fear mongering
about Antifa. In the past, No had also selectively live
streamed and film Antifa and Patriot Prayer slash prowdboy rallies.
At one of these rallies, he was assaulted with milkshakes
(25:06):
and punched and shoved several times. This was a little
after No had been present to selectively film a right
wing assault at a local left wing hangout that left
a woman hospitalized with severe injuries. No had presented the
scene to look like right wingers were defending themselves, but
in actuality, they initiated this brutal attack, and it was
(25:28):
later found out that No was actually at the planning
of this violent assault. In some footage secretly filmed, No
was seen laughing as Patriot Prayer members discussed beating up
left wing activists and so called communists. After he was
beat up, No raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and
mostly stopped going to protests himself. Instead, he either embedded
(25:49):
footage from actual on the ground journalists or used stolen
footage from various far right accounts that download, edit, and
repost footage from protests. All the footage Andy No shares
about this head kicking incident is heavily edited to make
it unclear to his followers what is actually happening and
to make nose twisted narrative more believable. No started posting
(26:10):
about the truck driver assault by describing Portland as being
quote occupied with BLM and Antifa rioters unquote, further saying
that the man had simply crashed his car and that
quote the mob had pulled him out of his vehicle
and quote beat him senseless with no. There are always
(26:31):
attempts to paint Portland as being full of quote Antifa
mobs roaming the streets looking for anyone to beat up,
with the police never actually showing up to stop these
dangerous Antifa, which this is, of course, far from the truth.
The police themselves quickly showed up to this very incident
after the head kick and arrested the perpetrator as soon
(26:51):
as they identified him. No continued to post other people's
clips while describing quote rioters and quote the mob attacking
this man. But in the videos he shares, it's almost
entirely one person doing all of the violence, and other
members of this quote mob trying to physically restrain this
main person from hitting the truck driver in a clip
(27:12):
of people trying to provide first aid, and he describes
quote rioters when no riot was actually declared that night,
standing over the truck driver's unconscious body, after quote they
beat him up. No also writes quote they pour water
on him, as if people are just doing it for fun. Now,
water isn't actually poured on the person in the video
(27:33):
No captions that on but in other videos you can
see water being poured on his head to both clean
out the wounds and to attempt to wake him up.
And he then posts about the altercation that took place
prior to the crash, saying that quote, the BLM mob
is beating a blonde woman, referencing the truck driver's girlfriend.
And just as before, the video actually shows two people
(27:54):
from the crowd in front of the seven eleven trying
to hit this older woman as many of people from
the actual testing crowd tried to protect her. No makes
a post talking about the man that kicked the truck
driver in the head, saying quote, he's part of the
marauding BLM security at the protests in Portland. These are
the people protesters want to replace the police with Now,
(28:15):
this is simply an unverified and false claim. No one
in Portland has ever talked about replacing the police with
the random dudes that elected themselves as quote security during protests.
In fact, many people at protests speak out against these
self proclaimed security people, both before and after this incident.
(28:36):
And of course no failed to mention that all this
happened some distance away from the actual BLM protests that night.
Like I said, I was there and I knew nothing
about this until I got home and checked Twitter. But no,
what have you think that this is the BLM movement itself,
not a mixture of random men who la past security
and drunk people. At seven eleven, when interviewed by local media,
(28:58):
the truck driver's girl friend and the set of the
people who attacked her and her boyfriend were not real protesters.
We crooket. Make sure to check out Drink Champs, your
number one music podcast on the Black Effect Podcast Network,
(29:19):
hosts n O r E and d J E f
N sat down with artists and icon Yea, which Vulture
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with Yea and many more legendary artists each and every
Friday on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or
where ever you listen to your favorite shows. When P. T.
Barnum's Great American Museum burned to the ground in eight
six five, what rose from its ashes would change the world?
Welcome to Grim and Mild Presents and ongoing journey into
(30:01):
the strange, the unusual, and the fascinating. For our inaugural season,
we'll be giving you a backstage tour of the always
complex and often misunderstood cultural artifact that is the American
Side Show. So come along as we visit the shadowy
corners of the stage and learn about the people who
were at the center of it all in a place
where spectacle was king. We will soon discover there's always
(30:24):
more to the story than meets the eye, So step
right up and get in line. Listen to Grim and
Mile Presents now on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more over at
Grim and Mild dot Com Slash presents After thirty years,
it's time to return to the halls of West Beverly
(30:46):
High and hang out at the peach pit. On the
podcast nine O two one o MG joined Jenny Garth
and Tori Spelling for a rewatch of the hit series
Beverly Hills nine O two one oh. From the very beginning,
we get to tell the fans all of the behind
the scenes stories to actually happen, so they know what
happened on camera obviously, but we can tell them all
the good stuff that happened off camera. Get all the
(31:08):
juicy details of every episode that you've been wondering about
for decades. As nine O two one oh, super fan
and radio host Sissany sits in with Jenny and Tory
too reminisce, reflect and relive each moment, from Brandon and
Kelly's first kiss to shouting Donna Martin graduates, you have
an amazing memory. You remember everything about the entire ten
(31:29):
years that we filmed that show, and you remember absolutely
nothing of the ten years that we filmed that show.
Listen to nine O two one OMG on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
From months leading up to this incident, the far right
(31:50):
had seemed almost afraid to get involved in Portland's protests.
Some of this was likely due to the terrifying police violence,
but we suspect the larger factor was that over the weeks,
Portland's BLM protesters had been hardened by that violence and
grown skilled at standing up to it as a unit.
Prior to the sixteenth, there had only been two truly
noteworthy far right attacks on protests. One came courtesy of
(32:13):
a former Navy seal who allegedly threw an improvised explosive
device at a small crowd of activists after a demonstration,
and on August fifteenth, a group of right wing protesters,
including many former Patriot Prayer members, held a flag wave
outside the Justice Center. Numerous attendees assaulted and maced left
wing counter protesters. One attendee, longtime far right rally or
(32:34):
Skyler Journegan, fired his handgun into the crowd. He failed
to hit anyone and was arrested a few days later,
but the incident presaged rising tensions that would break out
into mass violence just a week later. Online rage over
the assault outside of the seven eleven, and long simmering
anger over the BLM movement, which had seemed to capture
the city's entire interest, inspired a coalition of different patriot
(32:56):
groups to plan a rally for the twenty second. The
attend d s would turn out to be a serried
melange of far right and outright fascist demonstrators. Members of
the Proud Boys made up the backbone of the force
that showed up in front of the j C on
the twenty second, but there were also Neo Nazis and militiamen.
The individuals who showed up were only bound by two things,
performative support for police who assaulted leftists and a desire
(33:20):
to do similar violence themselves. These men and women showed
up ready to fight. They wore armor, carried paintball guns
with frozen paintballs, cans of bear mace, telescoping batons, knives,
and firearms. The start of the demonstration was set for
twelve noon. By the time Garrison and I arrived on scene,
several dozen right wingers were already present. Standing across the
(33:42):
street were less than half that number of anti fascists.
The vibe was immediately tense, but not immediately violent. A
pro BLM bicycle protests drove through the street in between
both groups, followed by a crowd of several dozen bikers
for Trump and men in trucks waving Trump and backed
the blue flags. Well all this happened, more fascists and
far right demonstrators continued to arrive. Their numbers hit a
(34:05):
hundred than two hundred, while the forces countering them remained
relatively small. At around twelve ten PM, a massive street
fight broke out, as best I could tell, and started
when a local activist in a wheelchair pulled up in
front of one pro Trump biker. People surrounded both of them.
Both sides collided, and then there were fist fights, mace
and shoving. I can't even tell you who started it.
(34:34):
David Willis, a local anti Semitic protester, threatened me in
a number of other protesters with an a R fifteen
style paintball gun loaded with paintballs that he had frozen
in order to cause more damage. Willis had evidently spent
quite some time listening to Portland protest live streams. He
repeatedly threatened people using a tone that I think was
a deliberate imitation of the police. There was a brief
(34:57):
loll in the action after this initial explosion, but it
did not last long. A violence commenced soon again. Right
wing demonstrators pulled out tasers and beat sticks. Several of
them formed up into a shield wall organized by a
neo Nazi with a baton who attempted to lead them
in the battle, and around twelve p m the fighting
(35:18):
waned again. Anti fascist reinforcement showed up and the two
groups neared parody, with two or three hundred people on
each side. There was a pause in the violence, but
everyone in attendance knew it would not last. The police
opted to stay away, although in the distance you could
hear the l rat asking everyone to please stay nice.
(35:49):
For a little over a half hour, relative peace reigned.
More left wing demonstrators continued to show up, including Dimitria Hester,
who led the crowd and chance of Black Lives Matter.
Right wingers responded with less cohesive chance of their own,
like hey, hey, ho ho, these violent rioters have got
to go. Finally, a bit after one ten p m,
(36:10):
a right wing demonstrator hupped a jug of o J
over his shield wall and into the anti fascist ranks.
This was followed by improvised flash bangs, and soon another
general melee broke out. Things got incredibly ugly. Much of
the violence centered around the BLM snack van, a common
sight at local protests that did exactly what it sounds like.
(36:30):
In this video, you can hear a crowd of several
dozen charge a single man standing in front of the van.
They mace him repeatedly and beat his arms and legs
with batons. Brawls continued to break out, and a little
after one twenty p m. As I rushed over to
wear a crowd of Proud Boys and other Bright wingers
were assaulting a person on the ground, beating them with sticks.
(36:52):
A Proud boy swung up baton at my camera, hand,
breaking it in two places. Numerous other people bones broken
by violent fascists that day. Most of these individuals will
never make their names public. They showed up in black
block to confront dangerous Nazis and other extremists who intended
to harm people. Violence occurred throughout the next hour, with
(37:13):
mass shield charges from the right wing that were repulsed
only after significant injuries. The whole ugly event culminated around
two pm, when an anti fascist shield wall finally squared
off with a fascist shield wall. This was the first
time that both groups had confronted each other in a mass,
unified way, as opposed to the dozens of scattered brawls
(37:36):
and to be fair conversations that had characterized the early
part of the day. The right hoocked fireworks and insults
at their opponents. Both groups kept their distance, throwing things
and opposing each other with lines of shields. This stalemate
lasted for a few minutes and was broken when a
group of unarmed and unmasked BIPOC activists marched up to
(37:59):
the right wing shield wall. Despite being unarmed, they were assaulted,
en massed by the crowd and repeatedly maced. Anti fascists
had to run up and pull them back into the
line in order to protect them. The sheer volume of
mace deployed by the right wing worked against them, though
(38:22):
unlike their opponents who had spent the summer getting tear gassed,
the right wing had very few gas masks or respirators.
They blinded themselves with their own poisoned Then one anti
fascist hucked a firework into the middle of the half
blind shield wall, and the entire line panicked and eventually
broke and fled. They briefly ran to the nearby I. R.
(38:42):
S Building, begging the federal agents inside for help. When
they were denied help, the right wing crowd retreated and
gradually dissipated. August would mark the largest confrontation between right
and left in Portland during the summer, but it was
not the deadliest. That title would be earned the next weekend,
when a Trump cruise, which consisted of several thousand pickup
(39:03):
trucks and other vehicles flying Trump and thin Blue line flags,
rolled through the city of Portland and eventually through downtown Portland.
There was violence at this event, but it was much
less cohesive. Several groups of Trump supporters fired paintball guns
and mason to crowds from moving vehicles. The crowd this day, however,
was less extreme than the smaller crowd on the twenty two.
(39:24):
Some Trump supporters even went to the aid of people
who were injured by other Trump supporters, and in general
the overall group was much less ready to fight, at
least in an organized way. But the site of thousands
of pickup trucks blaring flags, and of course the assaults
from a number of members of the Trump crews meant
that anxiety was extremely high among Portland protesters, and of
(39:46):
course contributing to this was the fact that the previous
two weekends had involved heavy violence and gunfire. One individual
had fired a handgun in warning during the protest on
the twenty second, in addition to Skyler Journegan's shots into
a crowd the week before. So understandably everyone was very
amped up, and while the train of mounted Trump supporters
eventually passed through town without serious life threatening violence, events
(40:10):
at the periphery of the caravan would shortly lead to
the first fatality of Portland's protests. The conflict occurred as
two right wing demonstrators, both of whom had been present
at the two were walking home. J Danielson and Chandler
Pappas were regular patriot prayer marchers. Both carried handguns, batons,
and mace. The exact sequence of events is unclear, but
(40:33):
as best we can tell from since released surveillance footage,
Pappas and Danielson seemed to have attacked a pro BLM
and anti fascist demonstrator named Michael Reinhold. Reinhold responded to
their mace with gunfire, killing Danielson in nearly hitting pappas
Renald ran and fled the scene, immediately disappearing into the city.
For several days, his identity was unknown and details around
(40:56):
the shooting were completely obscured. This did not stop the
right wing media and President Trump himself from turning Danielson
into a martyr. Calls to brand Antifa a terrorist group
reached a fever pitch when Reynold's identity was revealed. Much
was made of the fact that he identified with both
BLM and Antifa. The right wing disinformation ecosystem took this
(41:17):
as evidence that Antifa and BLM were both part of
some shadowy, organized plot to overthrow the United States government.
The reality is that anti fascist activism and the goals
of Black Lives Matter have always been deeply tied. As
Max Smith attests, does that mean I'm part of an
Antifa group? No am, I an anti ati fascist? Absolutely,
because how how can you not be right that? Only
(41:39):
that only makes sense? Um, And so I think it's
it's it's again one of those things that gets like
thrown into the media as a buzzword that doesn't actually
mean anything, and that's only doubled down on by like
our president and people like that who just continue to
use war as they don't understand because they think that
they're explosive when in reality, in reality, the Antifa guys,
(42:04):
you know, the Antifa, the Rose the City Antifa or whatever,
are really like a bunch of like guys that I
do like research and stuff for the most part, again
US information. I've long used contacts to get like information
like who is this gang? Who you know, what is
this tattoo on this white supremacis I've been seeing over here?
That's really what I've used them for. Um, you know
(42:25):
the people that I know that identify as Antifa. But
other than that, I mean, it's it's it's just an ideology.
So it's it's weird to see people ask questions like
are you Antifa? And I'm like, what does that mean?
Or is BLM has been taken over by Antifa? And
BLM even is one of those statements that again kind
of like Antifa, it doesn't actually mean anything. You know,
(42:47):
there's no a Black Lives Matter a chapter here, like
like national chapter here that I'm aware of. And people
always say, you know, like this stuff takes away from
the spirit of a Black Lives Matter. But then they
also turn around and say a Black Lives Matter as
a Marxist organization run by you know, the g B
t Q so and say that it's itself is you know,
(43:10):
is a swoop. So there seems like there's like a
lot of things, and people have their ideas about these
factions or groups or whatever, but in reality, these people
aren't a part of any of that. We, I mean,
most of us are not a part of any actual
a group of anything. We're just out here, you know,
fighting for our rights and for the rights of our
(43:31):
of our friends and neighbors. So all those labels are
are kind of funny, like, you know, we're not in
a gang. We aren't the Proud Boys or the Patriot Prayers.
They all have their names and clicks and groups and
and and and and and nonprofits and all that. That's
not really our thing. So I think that they have
(43:52):
a hard time. I think that people have a hard
time processing that. In general, that's not the way that
we're trained to think. We're kind of training to think
in the in the in the way of of clicks
and groups and brands. You know, it's all about the
branding and how are you branded and do you wear
matching outfits and that kind of stuff. So people just
see black block and they see a brand, and then
(44:14):
they hear Antifa and they think of a brand, and
then they just put it all together and they have
this idea in their heads, but it's it's just not
based in reality. Crim Brule also had some complicated thoughts
on the intersection of anti fascism in the Black Lives
Matter movement. Um, it's complicated in the source of a
lot of tention, uh for sure in the city right
(44:37):
now and kind of throughout this entire thing, um, because
you do have you know, marches and actions that claims
be you know, black Lives matter when a lot of
the people there um are there for like quote unquote
anti fascists, for purely anti copias and um. And it's
(45:02):
hard because you need bodies. But I don't know, because
that's like that's some like person or days thinking. I
feel like I know, Um, I feel like there's a
lot we've learned about that and about I think direct
action in general and protests in general. I think it
actually is extremely important now. It's always ext really important,
(45:25):
but now I think it's ext really important, and a
lot of people are more aware of that disirect action
or the protest or like the mutual aid UH reach out,
I don't know has a defined like role or defines
like this is you know Antibaptist, Marxist, is black lives
(45:48):
matter d A, this is you know anti cop sweep
or whatever. I don't think it has to be you
know that always spelled out, but it needs to be
clear and then needs to be you know, leadership in
position that no examin role. And you know, like I
said earlier, kind of that like thinking we need numbers
(46:09):
of personality person a days and it kind of is
that there's yea, as you kind of learned, bigger d
A and bigger actions. When she gets out of the
tay wires, it's gonna be chaotic because there are so
many people there who maybe they're there for the right reasons,
but they're not like on the same page. And when
(46:31):
everyone's not on the same age, and it's really hard
for actually or effective and it's really easy people get sUAS.
So like, yeah, smaller working sides and more focused now
just talking about strategy, um, but with the with the
focus is important and you know, all these all these
(46:53):
things I guess in terms of the relationship between I
guess those two things. My perspective is black liberations, liberation
for everybody, and I guess from our perspective, the goal
I don't know if it's gold, but the the through
(47:13):
line from me personally is black lives matter, at least
like from a looking at it linearly standpoint. If if
we really are considering black lives matter, if we get
a point in our country where black lives are mattering,
(47:34):
then there will probably be less bashists or we will
have done something, you know what I mean. If the
entire country is like black that's a country where at
least bashists aren't in government, and that's a country where
at least, um there's probably, if not abolished, police less
police presidents or police starts spect black people, and police
(47:56):
sent their spect black people. Clearly at least they're sec
black people. They respect everybody. So for me through line
and like that's also an evidence. But that's what started
all this um is black eyes than matter. And I
don't know, I'm not happy there's like self actions or
(48:18):
there's kind of these multiple ideas existing within a movement
about the goals, but that is the reality of the
we live in. And I can only work together because
we do all have common roles. Um. Yeah. The actual
nuance in the discussion was lost in the national reaction
to Jay Danielson's death. As soon as Michael Ryanald admitted
(48:41):
to the shooting, claiming self defense and a Vice video,
a man hunt ensued to bring him down. The U. S.
Marshals caught him in early September, and Michael was gunned
down near where he'd been hiding in Washington. Initial reports
spoke of an exchange of gunfire, but later evidence revealed
that Michael had not fired while officers shot dozens of
times at the vehicle he was in. In mid October,
(49:02):
at a campaign rally ahead of the November election, President
Trump bragged that he had used the U. S. Marshals
as more or less a death squad, saying we sent
in the U. S. Marshals to fifteen minutes. It was
over fifteen minutes, it was home. We got him. They
knew who he was and didn't want to arrest him
(49:23):
in fifteen minutes at ended anywhile, but then they called
themselves peaceful proc right wing rallies and violence would continue
throughout the remainder of the year. It was, however, notably
lower key than it had been before. Several hundred Proud
Boys rallied on the weekend of September twenty six, but
both sides were kept largely apart. Less than a week
(49:44):
before the event, Eugene ANTIFA had released a set of
leaked chat logs from a group called Patriot Coalition who
would help plan events on August as well. The chats,
which I reported on alongside Jason Wilson for Bellancat and
the UK Guardian, included threats to shoot members of the
a c l U and legal observers, as well as
embryonic plans to kidnap the governor of Oregon over the
(50:05):
state's COVID nineteen lockdown. The governor convened a press conference
after these reports and threatened to use the state's long
dormant anti paramilitary laws if there was mass violence by
the Proud Boys. On September, police kept anti fascists and
fascists apart. A number of Proud Boys did do violence,
assaulting several members of the press who came to cover
(50:26):
their event, but no mass thousand person street fight ensued
this time. In fact, after the far right street activities
seemed to ebb For several months, there were small back
the Blue rallies, which often involved right wingers masoncounter protesters
and threatening them with firearms, and of course involved anti
fascists doing things like breaking the windows on their cars,
(50:46):
but mass violence failed to ensue. It seemed for a
while as if the far right had spent itself in
August of This would turn out to be untrue. Of course,
we're recording this episode just two weeks after the capital
of the United Dates was sieged and occupied briefly by
hundreds of far right, fascist and white nationalist demonstrators on
January six. This event was signposted by an attack by
(51:10):
far right insurrectionists on the city of Salem, Oregon's capital,
just a few days earlier. The whole chain of events
further reinforced Oregon's reputation as something of a national bellweather
for far right violence, with the anti fascists of the
Rose City endured in the late summer came home to
the capital of the entire country just a few months later.
(51:34):
Uh where the grand pops who couldn't fathom the obamasists,
I don't hate America, just to me, and she keeps
the promises looking like the sixties. It's crazy on nationwide
deja w what my people post to do go to
schools named after the clan founder were around town? Is
I don't see why we frown in Native American students
forced to learn about when o'pea Sarah? How is that fair? Bro?
(51:58):
Some euro's unsung some months that's get monuments built for them.
But ain't be all a little bit of monster? We
crook you Hello, and welcome to our show. I'm Zoe
de Chanelle and I'm so excited to be joined by
(52:19):
my friends and cast Meats hant Us, Simone and Lamar
and Morris to recap our hit television series New Girl.
Join us every Monday on the Welcome to Our Show podcast,
where we'll share behind the scenes stories of your favorite
New Girl episodes. Each week, we answer all your burning
questions like is there really a bear in every episode
of New Girl? Plus you'll hear hilarious stories like this
(52:40):
that was one of years things you brought back from
hot yea all professional pasketball players. Yeah. Listen to the
Welcome to Our Show podcast on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Adoption of
teens from foster care is a topic not enough people
(53:01):
know about, and we're here to change that. I'm April Denuity,
host of the new podcast Navigating Adoption, presented by adopt
us Kids. Each episode brings you compelling, real life adoption
stories told by the families that lived them, with commentary
from experts. Visit adopt us Kids dot org. Slash podcasts
are subscribed to Navigating Adoption presented by adopt Us Kids,
(53:22):
brought to you by the U. S Department of Health,
the Human Services Administration for Children and Families, and the Council.
The Gangster Chronicles podcast is a weekly conversation that revolves
around underworld and criminals and entertainers to victims, crime and
law enforcement. We cover all facets of the game. Gangster
Chronicles podcast doesn't glorify promotilsta of activities. We just discussed
(53:45):
the ramifications and repercussions of these amptivities. Because at the
Wall you played gainst games you are ultimately rewarded with
Gangster Prizes. Our Heart Radio is number one for podcasts,
but don't take our award for it. Find Against the
Chronicles podcast and my Heart Radio or wherever you get
your podcast
Here's to the great American settlers. The millions of you
have settled for unsatisfying jobs because they pay the bills.
Of course, there is something else you could do. If
you've got something to say, Start a podcast with Spreaker
from my heart and unleash your creative freedom. Maybe even
earn enough money to one day tell your old bus hey,
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I'm no settler, I'm an explorer. Spreaker dot com, spr
E a K E R. Hustle on over today. Look
for your children's eyes and you will discover the true
magic of a forest. Find a forest near you and
start exploring a Discover the Forest dot org. Brought to
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you by the United States Forest Service and the AD Council.
The Gangster Chronicles podcast is a weekly conversation that evolves
around underworld, the criminals and entertainers to victim's crime and
law enforcement. We cover all facets of the game. Gangster
Chronicles podcast doesn't glorify for motilicit activities. We just discussed
(01:03):
the ramifications and repercussions of these activities. Because at the wall,
if you played Gainst games, you are ultimately rewarded with
Gainster prizes. Our Heart Radio is number one for podcast,
but don't take our word for it. Find Against the
Chronicles podcast and my Heart Radio app or wherever you
get your podcast. For most of the last decade, the
(01:41):
city of Portland's national reputation was largely informed by the
sketch TV series Portlandia. The show began airing in two
thousand eleven, right at the start of the relevance of
the word hipster, and portrayed Portland is something of a
stereotypically loony liberal paradise, a place where people know the
names of the chickens served in their restaurants. This image
(02:02):
dogged the city until two thousand seventeen, in the beginning
of the Trump years. For millions of Americans, the first
time they heard about Antifa or saw images of people
in black block was from news footage of the street
fights that grew increasingly endemic to Portland as the Trump
years wore on. But anti fascism has a long history
in the City of Roses, one that goes back further
(02:24):
than the reign of Donald Trump. Rose City Antifa is
the oldest organization in the United States with Antifa actually
in its name. It formed in two thousand seven as
part of a local effort to stop a music festival
from the neo Nazi Hammer Skin Nation. The festival is
supposed to be coming to Portland, and our c A
was successful in stopping it. The organization has continued up
(02:45):
to the modern day. While its members do take place
in street actions to counter fascist demonstrations, the bulk of
their organization's work happens online, revealing and doxing white supremacists
and other fascists. The history of ANTIFA just organizing an
Oregon goes back a lot further than even our c A, though,
as we discussed an episode one, Oregon is the only
(03:07):
state that was founded to be whites only. The clan
had an overwhelming presence here in the nineteen twenties. In
the early twenties, virtually every member of the Portland Police
Bureau was a member. The first president of the Portland
Police Association was a former member of the German American Bund,
an organization established by the Nazi Party. Oregon in particular,
(03:27):
and the Pacific Northwestern General has held a special place
in the hearts of white supremacists for more than a century.
In the nineteen seventies and eighties, the clan saw another
surge and Nazi terrorist groups like the Order carried out
a string of successful attacks. White supremacist ideologus began floating
the idea that the Pacific Northwest might be the perfect
place for a white homeland. The idea was that since
(03:49):
the PMW was already one of the whitest parts of
the country, Nazis would have an easy time moving here
and forcing non whites out through violence. This idea was
most directly pushed by a man named Harold Covington, with
a now defunct Oregon based organization, Volksfront. Covington coined the
term Northwest imperative to describe the white supremacist drive to
(04:10):
conquer the Pacific Northwest. As the Nazis flooded into Oregon, Idaho,
and Washington, anti racists started organizing to oppose them. The
group Anti Racist Action was formed in Portland in ninety
seven and is probably the most direct ancestor to Rose
City Antifa and contemporary anti fascist groups. For years, the
men and women of Anti Racist Action or a r
(04:32):
A battled fascists in the streets. People were sometimes killed
and often grievously wounded. Mike Crenshaw grew up in Illinois,
but moved to Portland in nine he quickly got involved
in anti racist organizing at one of the high points
her fascist violence in Portland history, however, from not really
seeing white folks at all unless they were of authority
(04:53):
to move into white communities where white people were definitely
the majority. Um and not just in was authority, but
also everywhere. So there were there were experiences I had
where we lived in smaller towns in Illinois where we
me and my brother would be like the only black
kids in certain schools, you know, UM, and then Minnesota
(05:15):
often being in a in public ghost restore are being
in downtown, you know, you're one of very two black folks.
So being by the time I was a teenager, you know,
I remember going down tough like to visit people in
Alabama and Mississippi and being afraid that that the clan
was gonna get us, you know, being afraid that if
(05:37):
we were out in the woods at night, that the
clan was gonna get us, because that the racial terror
that was a reality for our people in America was
something that we learned about, you know, and we had
seen pictures of it in magazines, UM, and we or
we might have even known some people directly are indirectly
who've been killed, you know, as a result of racism,
(05:59):
of mom violence or or police mutality or something. So
you know, there's always a sense of fear associated with
this existing here, you know. And that said, being a
teenager on the streets in Minneapolis, I understood that the clan,
you know, since early childhood and being scared in the
night and stuff like that, I understood to them a violent, racist,
(06:21):
racist terror organs. So when I was in the hardcore
punk scene, you know, as a black kid again one
of the only people in that social scene, in that
subculture that was black. UM, when I heard that neo
Nazis were coming around, I had a very visceral reaction
(06:42):
to it. I was like, wait a minute, these people
that hide behind mask and and where she you know,
to consider there, I just see that have been lynching
us for hundreds of years. These people feel comfortable being
part of the community and being out front about it.
So when I heard that, I had a very like
(07:03):
I had almost immediately, I had a militant reaction. I
was like, oh, hell no, that's not that's not acceptable.
And you know, being a young man um and hanging
out on the streets, having already dealt with physical violence
and being ostracized and bullied and beat up. This is
part of being growing up in Chicago. That's the pharm,
(07:26):
you know, um having the fight all the time and
stuff I was. There was no way I was letting
that go down. Mike had moved to town just a
few years after probably the single most defining moment of
the modern struggle against white supremacy in Portland, the murder
of mud Ghetta Sara. Sara was a twenty eight year
old Ethiopian immigrant who lived in an apartment complex at
(07:48):
the intersection of Southeast thirty first Avenue in Pine Street.
His building was adjacent to the building where Nick Heis,
a member of the racist skinhead group east Side White Pride,
also lived. On the night of November, Sara returned from
a party. Nick Heis, Kenneth Miski, and a crew of
other racist skinheads rolled into the same parking lot. They
were drunk and their blood was up from a night
(08:10):
of distributing white supremacist propaganda. The propaganda Miski and his
friends had put up all night belonged to a group
called White Aryan Resistance or War which was led by
the recently deceased Nazi Tom Metzker. At this point, Tom
lived in southern California, but over the last few years
his organization had increasingly propaganda's two disaffected young white men
(08:32):
in Oregon. The goal of Metzger's propaganda was to promote
racial violence, and on the night of November he succeeded.
According to eyewitnesses, Miski and two other Nazis pulled their
vehicle up in front of Sara's parked car. The nazis
girlfriends were also in the vehicle, and they egged their
partners on with cries of let's kill him, let's kill him,
(08:53):
and that's exactly what they did. Miski hit Mulugeta from
behind with a baseball bat and kept beating him after
he dropped, while his fellow Nazis kicked the prone man
with steel toed boots. Muta Sara died of his injuries.
His killers were convicted of murder. They pled guilty and
never faced trial. More As D's, head of the Southern
Poverty Law Center, sued Tom Metzger in civil court and
(09:16):
won a landmark judgment against him. The lawsuit established the
legal precedent that someone like Metzker had what's called vicarious
responsibility for Sara's death because Metzker had good reason to
know that his actions and the propaganda he put out
would lead to violence. The murder of Mula Getta Sara
was a galvanizing moment for the Portland anti racist community.
(09:37):
By the time Mike Crenshaw showed up, everyone knew what
the stakes were. I had a group of friends that
I was hanging with, you know, and we were all
fine with the anti racist skinheads element, and that's what
we wanted to be. And so when we heard these
Leo Nazis had organized themselves with the leaderships on the
Klansman into a gang called the White Knights, we decided
(09:59):
that we were going to confront them, and we did it.
We confronted them. We gave them an opportunity to their abuse.
We said, are you guys white power? And they said yeah,
And we said, look, the next time we see you,
we're gonna ask you again, and if you are still
white powers, then we're gonna suck you up. You know.
That's what happened. Some of them change, some of them,
(10:20):
some of them denounced it. A couple of them actually detected.
But before the one, if that, I became getting of
a long protected period of violence. You know, a few
years went by where we were little fighting baily um
and it was it was, it was, it was heavy man.
In addition to anti racist action, the groups Skinheads Against
(10:41):
Racial Prejudice also confronted Nazis in the streets of Portland.
The podcast series It Did Happen Here, not to be
confused with my own podcast series It Could Happen Here,
documents the story in more detailed than we can afford
to do here. But it's fair to say that the
murder of mo lookd at us a raw informs the
tactics of many anti fascists in Portland to this day.
The basic idea is that if you allow these people
(11:02):
to organize and gather unopposed, they will commit murder. It's
just a matter of time. In two seventeen, after a
solid year of patriot prayer and proud boy gatherings in
the attendant street fights they provoked, Jeremy Christian murdered two
men on a Portland max light rail train. This had
an equally galvanizing effect on the city's anti racists. Things,
(11:23):
of course, escalated further after Charlottesville, and the year two
thousand eighteen in the city of Portland was one of
the bloodiest years of fascist violence faced by any city
in the United States. We prot What's up, guys. I'm
a shop and I am Troy Millings and we are
(11:45):
the host of the Ernier Leisure podcast where we break
down business models and examine the latest transit finance. We
whold court and have exclusive interviews with some of the
biggest names of business, sport, and entertainment, from DJ Khaled
to Mark Cuban, Rick Ross as Shaquil O'Neil. I mean alum,
not list expansive. Listen in as our guests reveal their
business models, hardships and triumphs and their respective fields. The
knowledge is in death and the questions are always delivered
(12:07):
from your standpoint. We want to know what you want
to know. We talked to the legends of business, sports
and entertainment about how they got their start and most importantly,
how they make their money. Earni a Leisia is a
college business class mixed with pop culture. I want to
learn about the real estate game, unclears, how the stock
market works. We got you interested in starting a truck
and company or vendor machine business. Not really sure about
(12:28):
how taxes or credit work. We got it all covered.
The Earnie Leisure podcast is available now. Listen to Earnie
Leisure on the Black Effect podcast Network, I Heart Radio, app,
Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey lead
the listeners take here. Last season on Lethal Lit, you
(12:49):
might remember I came to Hollow Falls on a mission
clearing my aunt best name and making sure justice was
finally served. But I hadn't counted on a rash of
new murders tearing apart the town. My mission put myself
and my friends in danger. Though it wasn't all bad.
(13:09):
I'm going to be a reality tig. I like you,
but now all signs point to a new serial killer
in Hollow Falls. If this game is just starting, you
better believe I'm gonna win. I'm tig Torres and this
is Lethal Lit. Catch up on season one of the
hit murder mystery podcast Lethal Lit, a tig Tara's mystery
(13:32):
out now, and then tune in for all new thrills
in season two, dropping weekly starting February nine. Subscribe now
to never miss an episode. Listen to Leave the Lit
on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever
you get your podcasts. I'm Colleen with joined me the
host of Eating Wall Broke podcast While I eat a
meal created by self made entrepreneurs, influencers and celebrities over
(13:55):
a meal they once eight when they were broke. Today
I have the lovely aj Crimson, official Princess of comfin Asia.
And as we're here on Eating While Broke and today
I'm gonna break down my meal that got me through
the time when I was broken. Listen to Eating While
Broke on the I Heart Radio app, on Apple podcast
(14:15):
or wherever you get your podcasts. My colleague Garrison is
going to take over here to give you an overview
of how the street battles between fascists and anti fascists
evolved from two thousand seventeen on. As Trump ushered conservative
nationalism into the mainstream, the vast mega movement brought street
(14:37):
battles with their political enemies back into vogue. The most
prominent of the far right groups that gathered in Portland
was Patriot Prayer, led by self described street preacher Joey Gibson.
Petriet Prayer formed alongside numerous other far right and neo
fascist groups in to support the candidacy of Donald Trump throughout.
(15:01):
Patriot Prayer put on dozens and dozens of rallies throughout
the Pacific Northwest and especially Portland. While Patriot Prayer rarely
numbered more than a few dozen members, they were capable
in drawing in hundreds of people by allying with militias
like the Three per Centers and street gains like the
Proud Boys, and also explicit white nationalist groups like Identity Europa.
(15:22):
These street demos regularly escalated into violent brawls, with police
almost always taking the side of the far right and
carrying out attacks on anti fascist demonstrators. Here's I was
someone with the Youth Liberation Front explained their entry into
activism and anti fascism. Reminder, we've redubbed the audio with
a voice actor because these children are regularly threatened with murder. Yeah.
(15:46):
I think for me, it was definitely what was going
on in my everyday life that kind of pushed me
to get more involved in politics. I was, I was
working in school and then I heard about Jeremy Christian
killing people on the max I ride home and fucking
then not like really consumed me, and it was integral
and to me, becoming like anti fascist and any racist
and not just kind of pushed my growth into anarchism
(16:07):
and ecology. So I think things happening in my world
around me was the first thing that definitely pushed me here.
Jeremy Christian attended multiple Patriot Prayer rallies before he stabbed
three people and killed two in a racially motivated attack
on Portland's Max Rail on maven. While Christian was eventually
kicked out of a Patriot Prayer rally for openly sig hiling,
(16:31):
the fact that Joey Gibson chose to hold a rally
immediately after the murders suggests that many of their members
may not have disavowed him as much as they claimed.
The far right rallies that immediately followed Christian's stabbing spree
grew ever more violent. Gibson and company used their new
found notoriety to hold events in cities throughout the West Coast,
(16:52):
many of which ended in brawls. Through it all, Gibson
maintained a close relationship with the Portland Police EUO, specifically
Lieutenant Jeff Naia, the previous commander of ppb's Rapid Response Team.
The very same team of quote riot police who would
be responsible for suppressing BLM rallies. In in text messages
(17:15):
from Lieutenant Naia to Gibson found via public records requests,
Lieutenant Naia was showcased giving Gibson information about Antifa during
rallies and instructing Gibson and other Patriot Prayer members on
how to avoid being arrested themselves. At one point, Naia
went so far as to tell Gibson that he and
other officers were trying specifically not to arrest a violent
(17:37):
right wing straight brawler Tiny Toast, who had outstanding arrest
warrants at the time. Naia told Gibson, quote, just make
sure he doesn't do anything which may draw our attention
if he still has the warrant in our system. I
don't run, you guys, so I don't personally know the
officers could arrest him. I don't see a need to
(17:57):
arrest on the warrant unless there is a reason in unquote.
The texts were from seen but only released in February
of nine. Back in June, a rally that was originally
planned to protest police violence turned into an anti fascist
rally after Patriot Prayer announced they would show up to
(18:19):
counter the original protest. After some brawling in the streets,
the Portland Police Bureau arrested multiple anti fascists, but failed
to arrest anyone on the right. This appears to have
been done under orders from Lieutenant Naia. In live stream footage,
officers are seen walking up to and telling Gibson quote,
I just talked to Jeff Naia and he asked me
(18:40):
to tell you that he has probably cause to arrest
a couple of the guys here. They've arrested the other side,
so it's not singling you guys out, but it's time
to go. If you guys can go home, there won't
be any arrests. Two months later, at another opposing anti
fascist patriot prayer slash Proud Boy rally, Portland police munitions
at anti fascists. As they ordered them to disperse. One
(19:04):
of these munitions, a flash bang grenade was launched at
the head of a self described anti fascist, Aaron Anthony
can Too. The grenade split his skull open and embedded
all the way through his bike helmet. Kentu was treated
at the scene by several volunteer street medics and eventually
was taken to the hospital, he suffered a traumatic brain
(19:24):
injury with severe hemorrhaging. Had he not been wearing that
bike helmet, he would have most certainly died. Fast forward
to the start. For the first two months of BLM
protests in Portland, the far right was oddly absent. This
was seen as strange by everyone on the ground. For years,
far right demonstrators had shown up at every possible event
(19:46):
to do violence, but as soon as tear gas and
beatings started in May, those familiar fascist faces were nowhere
to be seen. There were, however, constant rumors of Quote
Proud boys circling the area on Quote, and every once
in a while a random local fascist would show up briefly.
Also during the day, some would wave Blue Lives Matter
(20:08):
flags in front of the j C, but for the
most part, the right wing was mostly absent until August.
August sixteenth start out like any normal day in Portland
during the summer of By this point, the fed war
was over and there were small gatherings and protesters throughout
the city at a different location each night. On the sixteenth,
(20:28):
people were back at the Justice Center. During the afternoon
there were the standard speeches about police abolition and as
the afternoon turned into the evening, people started meandering around.
At around ten PM, a small group who had appointed
themselves as quote protest security attempted to aggressively escort out
someone from the parks around the j C. For unknown reasons,
(20:50):
Quote Security led this person over to the nearby seven eleven,
where they were more or less randomly jumped by someone else.
We should say a bit here about the seven eleven
near the Justice Center. Early in the summer, it had
earned the nickname Comrade seven eleven because the workers inside
repeatedly pulled in protesters to rescue them from police bull
(21:10):
rushes and clouds of tear gas. Unfortunately, as the summer
wore on, the seven eleven became a gathering place for
less savory individuals who coalesced at the fringes of the movement.
Street fights, some involving people tangentially involved in the protests
and others involving drunk people who just wanted to fight,
became an almost nightly occurrence. It was not uncommon to
(21:31):
see puddles of blood in the intersection leading to the
seven eleven, so it was not super surprising that the
person quote Security pulled out of the protest got jumped
near the seven eleven. After getting punched, chased, and tackled,
he ran away, but Quote Security stayed out in front
of the seven eleven. A woman nearby approached them and
(21:51):
asked what was going on. The Quote Security then got
aggressive with her other people near the seven eleven whose
affiliation is unclear, again stealing her stuff a backpack and skateboard.
She then chased people around and tried to pepper spray
the people stealing from her. Videos filmed at the time
suggests that most of the people involved in this fracas
(22:11):
were very inebriated. While all this was going on, another
person arrived at the seven eleven. He parked his truck
outside and attempted to de escalate this tricky situation. A
small crowd of around twenty people formed around the woman
who had been attacked. Upon hearing this woman had Quote
mazed people, the small group got aggressive, a few people
through water bottles. Someone who had been caught in the
(22:34):
pepper spray crossfire ran up and began punching this woman.
Violence waxed and waned for several minutes, and then the
man with the truck repeatedly tried to deescalate the situation. Eventually,
he gave up and got into his truck again, which
made a weird sound and lurched forward after he turned
it on. One of the self appointed security people then
walked up to the driver and began to hit him
(22:55):
through the open window. A couple of people also began
hitting the truck driver his girlfriend, who had walked around
the truck toward the small crowd. While all this was
going on, a much larger BLM demonstration was occurring a
few blocks away. I was there at the time, and
I didn't even know any of this was going on,
but some BLM protesters noticed the commotion and wandered over
(23:17):
to the seven eleven and tried to stop people from
attacking the truck driver and his girlfriend. The driver, still
under attack from his window, repped his engine a few times,
and when the road was completely clear, he drove away,
but he crashed about three blocks away from the seven eleven.
The self appointed security people chased after on foot, and
when they arrived at the crash site, one of the
(23:38):
quote security people pushed the truck driver onto the ground
and stopped him from leaving or walking around. The truck
driver explained that he wasn't trying to hurt anybody, and
this angered one of these so called security people, who
then began punching and kicking the truck driver, who was
already on the ground. The two other self appointed security
tried to restrain this one security guy who was repeatedly
(24:00):
hitting the truck driver, but this agitated security dude was
able to break free and brutally kicked the truck driver
in the back of the head, briefly knocking him out.
Volunteer street medics rushed the scene from the protest a
few blocks away to provide aid. This was a terrible, confusing,
and profoundly avoidable series of events. It had very little
(24:21):
to do with Portland's b LM movement, save that a
small number of self appointed security had been present at
the protest before this brawl started. This is not how
it was presented in right wing media, which portrayed the
whole situation as a mass BLM gang assault on a
white man for no other reason than his skin color.
Much of the disinformation came courtesy of the far right
(24:44):
blogger and social media personality Andy no. No had gained
popularity among the right in the past few years by
writing about the dangers of Muslim immigrants and fear mongering
about Antifa. In the past, No had also selectively live
streamed and film Antifa and Patriot Prayer slash prowdboy rallies.
At one of these rallies, he was assaulted with milkshakes
(25:06):
and punched and shoved several times. This was a little
after No had been present to selectively film a right
wing assault at a local left wing hangout that left
a woman hospitalized with severe injuries. No had presented the
scene to look like right wingers were defending themselves, but
in actuality, they initiated this brutal attack, and it was
(25:28):
later found out that No was actually at the planning
of this violent assault. In some footage secretly filmed, No
was seen laughing as Patriot Prayer members discussed beating up
left wing activists and so called communists. After he was
beat up, No raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and
mostly stopped going to protests himself. Instead, he either embedded
(25:49):
footage from actual on the ground journalists or used stolen
footage from various far right accounts that download, edit, and
repost footage from protests. All the footage Andy No shares
about this head kicking incident is heavily edited to make
it unclear to his followers what is actually happening and
to make nose twisted narrative more believable. No started posting
(26:10):
about the truck driver assault by describing Portland as being
quote occupied with BLM and Antifa rioters unquote, further saying
that the man had simply crashed his car and that
quote the mob had pulled him out of his vehicle
and quote beat him senseless with no. There are always
(26:31):
attempts to paint Portland as being full of quote Antifa
mobs roaming the streets looking for anyone to beat up,
with the police never actually showing up to stop these
dangerous Antifa, which this is, of course, far from the truth.
The police themselves quickly showed up to this very incident
after the head kick and arrested the perpetrator as soon
(26:51):
as they identified him. No continued to post other people's
clips while describing quote rioters and quote the mob attacking
this man. But in the videos he shares, it's almost
entirely one person doing all of the violence, and other
members of this quote mob trying to physically restrain this
main person from hitting the truck driver in a clip
(27:12):
of people trying to provide first aid, and he describes
quote rioters when no riot was actually declared that night,
standing over the truck driver's unconscious body, after quote they
beat him up. No also writes quote they pour water
on him, as if people are just doing it for fun. Now,
water isn't actually poured on the person in the video
(27:33):
No captions that on but in other videos you can
see water being poured on his head to both clean
out the wounds and to attempt to wake him up.
And he then posts about the altercation that took place
prior to the crash, saying that quote, the BLM mob
is beating a blonde woman, referencing the truck driver's girlfriend.
And just as before, the video actually shows two people
(27:54):
from the crowd in front of the seven eleven trying
to hit this older woman as many of people from
the actual testing crowd tried to protect her. No makes
a post talking about the man that kicked the truck
driver in the head, saying quote, he's part of the
marauding BLM security at the protests in Portland. These are
the people protesters want to replace the police with Now,
(28:15):
this is simply an unverified and false claim. No one
in Portland has ever talked about replacing the police with
the random dudes that elected themselves as quote security during protests.
In fact, many people at protests speak out against these
self proclaimed security people, both before and after this incident.
(28:36):
And of course no failed to mention that all this
happened some distance away from the actual BLM protests that night.
Like I said, I was there and I knew nothing
about this until I got home and checked Twitter. But no,
what have you think that this is the BLM movement itself,
not a mixture of random men who la past security
and drunk people. At seven eleven, when interviewed by local media,
(28:58):
the truck driver's girl friend and the set of the
people who attacked her and her boyfriend were not real protesters.
We crooket. Make sure to check out Drink Champs, your
number one music podcast on the Black Effect Podcast Network,
(29:19):
hosts n O r E and d J E f
N sat down with artists and icon Yea, which Vulture
called one of most significant interviews. I literally had to
go like Thanos and I don't want to have to
be the villain, but when I went and did the
Donda thing, YA returned and anybody had to sit back
and watch the real leader. Check out Drink Champs, Conversation
(29:40):
with Yea and many more legendary artists each and every
Friday on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or
where ever you listen to your favorite shows. When P. T.
Barnum's Great American Museum burned to the ground in eight
six five, what rose from its ashes would change the world?
Welcome to Grim and Mild Presents and ongoing journey into
(30:01):
the strange, the unusual, and the fascinating. For our inaugural season,
we'll be giving you a backstage tour of the always
complex and often misunderstood cultural artifact that is the American
Side Show. So come along as we visit the shadowy
corners of the stage and learn about the people who
were at the center of it all in a place
where spectacle was king. We will soon discover there's always
(30:24):
more to the story than meets the eye, So step
right up and get in line. Listen to Grim and
Mile Presents now on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more over at
Grim and Mild dot Com Slash presents After thirty years,
it's time to return to the halls of West Beverly
(30:46):
High and hang out at the peach pit. On the
podcast nine O two one o MG joined Jenny Garth
and Tori Spelling for a rewatch of the hit series
Beverly Hills nine O two one oh. From the very beginning,
we get to tell the fans all of the behind
the scenes stories to actually happen, so they know what
happened on camera obviously, but we can tell them all
the good stuff that happened off camera. Get all the
(31:08):
juicy details of every episode that you've been wondering about
for decades. As nine O two one oh, super fan
and radio host Sissany sits in with Jenny and Tory
too reminisce, reflect and relive each moment, from Brandon and
Kelly's first kiss to shouting Donna Martin graduates, you have
an amazing memory. You remember everything about the entire ten
(31:29):
years that we filmed that show, and you remember absolutely
nothing of the ten years that we filmed that show.
Listen to nine O two one OMG on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
From months leading up to this incident, the far right
(31:50):
had seemed almost afraid to get involved in Portland's protests.
Some of this was likely due to the terrifying police violence,
but we suspect the larger factor was that over the weeks,
Portland's BLM protesters had been hardened by that violence and
grown skilled at standing up to it as a unit.
Prior to the sixteenth, there had only been two truly
noteworthy far right attacks on protests. One came courtesy of
(32:13):
a former Navy seal who allegedly threw an improvised explosive
device at a small crowd of activists after a demonstration,
and on August fifteenth, a group of right wing protesters,
including many former Patriot Prayer members, held a flag wave
outside the Justice Center. Numerous attendees assaulted and maced left
wing counter protesters. One attendee, longtime far right rally or
(32:34):
Skyler Journegan, fired his handgun into the crowd. He failed
to hit anyone and was arrested a few days later,
but the incident presaged rising tensions that would break out
into mass violence just a week later. Online rage over
the assault outside of the seven eleven, and long simmering
anger over the BLM movement, which had seemed to capture
the city's entire interest, inspired a coalition of different patriot
(32:56):
groups to plan a rally for the twenty second. The
attend d s would turn out to be a serried
melange of far right and outright fascist demonstrators. Members of
the Proud Boys made up the backbone of the force
that showed up in front of the j C on
the twenty second, but there were also Neo Nazis and militiamen.
The individuals who showed up were only bound by two things,
performative support for police who assaulted leftists and a desire
(33:20):
to do similar violence themselves. These men and women showed
up ready to fight. They wore armor, carried paintball guns
with frozen paintballs, cans of bear mace, telescoping batons, knives,
and firearms. The start of the demonstration was set for
twelve noon. By the time Garrison and I arrived on scene,
several dozen right wingers were already present. Standing across the
(33:42):
street were less than half that number of anti fascists.
The vibe was immediately tense, but not immediately violent. A
pro BLM bicycle protests drove through the street in between
both groups, followed by a crowd of several dozen bikers
for Trump and men in trucks waving Trump and backed
the blue flags. Well all this happened, more fascists and
far right demonstrators continued to arrive. Their numbers hit a
(34:05):
hundred than two hundred, while the forces countering them remained
relatively small. At around twelve ten PM, a massive street
fight broke out, as best I could tell, and started
when a local activist in a wheelchair pulled up in
front of one pro Trump biker. People surrounded both of them.
Both sides collided, and then there were fist fights, mace
and shoving. I can't even tell you who started it.
(34:34):
David Willis, a local anti Semitic protester, threatened me in
a number of other protesters with an a R fifteen
style paintball gun loaded with paintballs that he had frozen
in order to cause more damage. Willis had evidently spent
quite some time listening to Portland protest live streams. He
repeatedly threatened people using a tone that I think was
a deliberate imitation of the police. There was a brief
(34:57):
loll in the action after this initial explosion, but it
did not last long. A violence commenced soon again. Right
wing demonstrators pulled out tasers and beat sticks. Several of
them formed up into a shield wall organized by a
neo Nazi with a baton who attempted to lead them
in the battle, and around twelve p m the fighting
(35:18):
waned again. Anti fascist reinforcement showed up and the two
groups neared parody, with two or three hundred people on
each side. There was a pause in the violence, but
everyone in attendance knew it would not last. The police
opted to stay away, although in the distance you could
hear the l rat asking everyone to please stay nice.
(35:49):
For a little over a half hour, relative peace reigned.
More left wing demonstrators continued to show up, including Dimitria Hester,
who led the crowd and chance of Black Lives Matter.
Right wingers responded with less cohesive chance of their own,
like hey, hey, ho ho, these violent rioters have got
to go. Finally, a bit after one ten p m,
(36:10):
a right wing demonstrator hupped a jug of o J
over his shield wall and into the anti fascist ranks.
This was followed by improvised flash bangs, and soon another
general melee broke out. Things got incredibly ugly. Much of
the violence centered around the BLM snack van, a common
sight at local protests that did exactly what it sounds like.
(36:30):
In this video, you can hear a crowd of several
dozen charge a single man standing in front of the van.
They mace him repeatedly and beat his arms and legs
with batons. Brawls continued to break out, and a little
after one twenty p m. As I rushed over to
wear a crowd of Proud Boys and other Bright wingers
were assaulting a person on the ground, beating them with sticks.
(36:52):
A Proud boy swung up baton at my camera, hand,
breaking it in two places. Numerous other people bones broken
by violent fascists that day. Most of these individuals will
never make their names public. They showed up in black
block to confront dangerous Nazis and other extremists who intended
to harm people. Violence occurred throughout the next hour, with
(37:13):
mass shield charges from the right wing that were repulsed
only after significant injuries. The whole ugly event culminated around
two pm, when an anti fascist shield wall finally squared
off with a fascist shield wall. This was the first
time that both groups had confronted each other in a mass,
unified way, as opposed to the dozens of scattered brawls
(37:36):
and to be fair conversations that had characterized the early
part of the day. The right hoocked fireworks and insults
at their opponents. Both groups kept their distance, throwing things
and opposing each other with lines of shields. This stalemate
lasted for a few minutes and was broken when a
group of unarmed and unmasked BIPOC activists marched up to
(37:59):
the right wing shield wall. Despite being unarmed, they were assaulted,
en massed by the crowd and repeatedly maced. Anti fascists
had to run up and pull them back into the
line in order to protect them. The sheer volume of
mace deployed by the right wing worked against them, though
(38:22):
unlike their opponents who had spent the summer getting tear gassed,
the right wing had very few gas masks or respirators.
They blinded themselves with their own poisoned Then one anti
fascist hucked a firework into the middle of the half
blind shield wall, and the entire line panicked and eventually
broke and fled. They briefly ran to the nearby I. R.
(38:42):
S Building, begging the federal agents inside for help. When
they were denied help, the right wing crowd retreated and
gradually dissipated. August would mark the largest confrontation between right
and left in Portland during the summer, but it was
not the deadliest. That title would be earned the next weekend,
when a Trump cruise, which consisted of several thousand pickup
(39:03):
trucks and other vehicles flying Trump and thin Blue line flags,
rolled through the city of Portland and eventually through downtown Portland.
There was violence at this event, but it was much
less cohesive. Several groups of Trump supporters fired paintball guns
and mason to crowds from moving vehicles. The crowd this day, however,
was less extreme than the smaller crowd on the twenty two.
(39:24):
Some Trump supporters even went to the aid of people
who were injured by other Trump supporters, and in general
the overall group was much less ready to fight, at
least in an organized way. But the site of thousands
of pickup trucks blaring flags, and of course the assaults
from a number of members of the Trump crews meant
that anxiety was extremely high among Portland protesters, and of
(39:46):
course contributing to this was the fact that the previous
two weekends had involved heavy violence and gunfire. One individual
had fired a handgun in warning during the protest on
the twenty second, in addition to Skyler Journegan's shots into
a crowd the week before. So understandably everyone was very
amped up, and while the train of mounted Trump supporters
eventually passed through town without serious life threatening violence, events
(40:10):
at the periphery of the caravan would shortly lead to
the first fatality of Portland's protests. The conflict occurred as
two right wing demonstrators, both of whom had been present
at the two were walking home. J Danielson and Chandler
Pappas were regular patriot prayer marchers. Both carried handguns, batons,
and mace. The exact sequence of events is unclear, but
(40:33):
as best we can tell from since released surveillance footage,
Pappas and Danielson seemed to have attacked a pro BLM
and anti fascist demonstrator named Michael Reinhold. Reinhold responded to
their mace with gunfire, killing Danielson in nearly hitting pappas
Renald ran and fled the scene, immediately disappearing into the city.
For several days, his identity was unknown and details around
(40:56):
the shooting were completely obscured. This did not stop the
right wing media and President Trump himself from turning Danielson
into a martyr. Calls to brand Antifa a terrorist group
reached a fever pitch when Reynold's identity was revealed. Much
was made of the fact that he identified with both
BLM and Antifa. The right wing disinformation ecosystem took this
(41:17):
as evidence that Antifa and BLM were both part of
some shadowy, organized plot to overthrow the United States government.
The reality is that anti fascist activism and the goals
of Black Lives Matter have always been deeply tied. As
Max Smith attests, does that mean I'm part of an
Antifa group? No am, I an anti ati fascist? Absolutely,
because how how can you not be right that? Only
(41:39):
that only makes sense? Um, And so I think it's
it's it's again one of those things that gets like
thrown into the media as a buzzword that doesn't actually
mean anything, and that's only doubled down on by like
our president and people like that who just continue to
use war as they don't understand because they think that
they're explosive when in reality, in reality, the Antifa guys,
(42:04):
you know, the Antifa, the Rose the City Antifa or whatever,
are really like a bunch of like guys that I
do like research and stuff for the most part, again
US information. I've long used contacts to get like information
like who is this gang? Who you know, what is
this tattoo on this white supremacis I've been seeing over here?
That's really what I've used them for. Um, you know
(42:25):
the people that I know that identify as Antifa. But
other than that, I mean, it's it's it's just an ideology.
So it's it's weird to see people ask questions like
are you Antifa? And I'm like, what does that mean?
Or is BLM has been taken over by Antifa? And
BLM even is one of those statements that again kind
of like Antifa, it doesn't actually mean anything. You know,
(42:47):
there's no a Black Lives Matter a chapter here, like
like national chapter here that I'm aware of. And people
always say, you know, like this stuff takes away from
the spirit of a Black Lives Matter. But then they
also turn around and say a Black Lives Matter as
a Marxist organization run by you know, the g B
t Q so and say that it's itself is you know,
(43:10):
is a swoop. So there seems like there's like a
lot of things, and people have their ideas about these
factions or groups or whatever, but in reality, these people
aren't a part of any of that. We, I mean,
most of us are not a part of any actual
a group of anything. We're just out here, you know,
fighting for our rights and for the rights of our
(43:31):
of our friends and neighbors. So all those labels are
are kind of funny, like, you know, we're not in
a gang. We aren't the Proud Boys or the Patriot Prayers.
They all have their names and clicks and groups and
and and and and and nonprofits and all that. That's
not really our thing. So I think that they have
(43:52):
a hard time. I think that people have a hard
time processing that. In general, that's not the way that
we're trained to think. We're kind of training to think
in the in the in the way of of clicks
and groups and brands. You know, it's all about the
branding and how are you branded and do you wear
matching outfits and that kind of stuff. So people just
see black block and they see a brand, and then
(44:14):
they hear Antifa and they think of a brand, and
then they just put it all together and they have
this idea in their heads, but it's it's just not
based in reality. Crim Brule also had some complicated thoughts
on the intersection of anti fascism in the Black Lives
Matter movement. Um, it's complicated in the source of a
lot of tention, uh for sure in the city right
(44:37):
now and kind of throughout this entire thing, um, because
you do have you know, marches and actions that claims
be you know, black Lives matter when a lot of
the people there um are there for like quote unquote
anti fascists, for purely anti copias and um. And it's
(45:02):
hard because you need bodies. But I don't know, because
that's like that's some like person or days thinking. I
feel like I know, Um, I feel like there's a
lot we've learned about that and about I think direct
action in general and protests in general. I think it
actually is extremely important now. It's always ext really important,
(45:25):
but now I think it's ext really important, and a
lot of people are more aware of that disirect action
or the protest or like the mutual aid UH reach out,
I don't know has a defined like role or defines
like this is you know Antibaptist, Marxist, is black lives
(45:48):
matter d A, this is you know anti cop sweep
or whatever. I don't think it has to be you
know that always spelled out, but it needs to be
clear and then needs to be you know, leadership in
position that no examin role. And you know, like I
said earlier, kind of that like thinking we need numbers
(46:09):
of personality person a days and it kind of is
that there's yea, as you kind of learned, bigger d
A and bigger actions. When she gets out of the
tay wires, it's gonna be chaotic because there are so
many people there who maybe they're there for the right reasons,
but they're not like on the same page. And when
(46:31):
everyone's not on the same age, and it's really hard
for actually or effective and it's really easy people get sUAS.
So like, yeah, smaller working sides and more focused now
just talking about strategy, um, but with the with the
focus is important and you know, all these all these
(46:53):
things I guess in terms of the relationship between I
guess those two things. My perspective is black liberations, liberation
for everybody, and I guess from our perspective, the goal
I don't know if it's gold, but the the through
(47:13):
line from me personally is black lives matter, at least
like from a looking at it linearly standpoint. If if
we really are considering black lives matter, if we get
a point in our country where black lives are mattering,
(47:34):
then there will probably be less bashists or we will
have done something, you know what I mean. If the
entire country is like black that's a country where at
least bashists aren't in government, and that's a country where
at least, um there's probably, if not abolished, police less
police presidents or police starts spect black people, and police
(47:56):
sent their spect black people. Clearly at least they're sec
black people. They respect everybody. So for me through line
and like that's also an evidence. But that's what started
all this um is black eyes than matter. And I
don't know, I'm not happy there's like self actions or
(48:18):
there's kind of these multiple ideas existing within a movement
about the goals, but that is the reality of the
we live in. And I can only work together because
we do all have common roles. Um. Yeah. The actual
nuance in the discussion was lost in the national reaction
to Jay Danielson's death. As soon as Michael Ryanald admitted
(48:41):
to the shooting, claiming self defense and a Vice video,
a man hunt ensued to bring him down. The U. S.
Marshals caught him in early September, and Michael was gunned
down near where he'd been hiding in Washington. Initial reports
spoke of an exchange of gunfire, but later evidence revealed
that Michael had not fired while officers shot dozens of
times at the vehicle he was in. In mid October,
(49:02):
at a campaign rally ahead of the November election, President
Trump bragged that he had used the U. S. Marshals
as more or less a death squad, saying we sent
in the U. S. Marshals to fifteen minutes. It was
over fifteen minutes, it was home. We got him. They
knew who he was and didn't want to arrest him
(49:23):
in fifteen minutes at ended anywhile, but then they called
themselves peaceful proc right wing rallies and violence would continue
throughout the remainder of the year. It was, however, notably
lower key than it had been before. Several hundred Proud
Boys rallied on the weekend of September twenty six, but
both sides were kept largely apart. Less than a week
(49:44):
before the event, Eugene ANTIFA had released a set of
leaked chat logs from a group called Patriot Coalition who
would help plan events on August as well. The chats,
which I reported on alongside Jason Wilson for Bellancat and
the UK Guardian, included threats to shoot members of the
a c l U and legal observers, as well as
embryonic plans to kidnap the governor of Oregon over the
(50:05):
state's COVID nineteen lockdown. The governor convened a press conference
after these reports and threatened to use the state's long
dormant anti paramilitary laws if there was mass violence by
the Proud Boys. On September, police kept anti fascists and
fascists apart. A number of Proud Boys did do violence,
assaulting several members of the press who came to cover
(50:26):
their event, but no mass thousand person street fight ensued
this time. In fact, after the far right street activities
seemed to ebb For several months, there were small back
the Blue rallies, which often involved right wingers masoncounter protesters
and threatening them with firearms, and of course involved anti
fascists doing things like breaking the windows on their cars,
(50:46):
but mass violence failed to ensue. It seemed for a
while as if the far right had spent itself in
August of This would turn out to be untrue. Of course,
we're recording this episode just two weeks after the capital
of the United Dates was sieged and occupied briefly by
hundreds of far right, fascist and white nationalist demonstrators on
January six. This event was signposted by an attack by
(51:10):
far right insurrectionists on the city of Salem, Oregon's capital,
just a few days earlier. The whole chain of events
further reinforced Oregon's reputation as something of a national bellweather
for far right violence, with the anti fascists of the
Rose City endured in the late summer came home to
the capital of the entire country just a few months later.
(51:34):
Uh where the grand pops who couldn't fathom the obamasists,
I don't hate America, just to me, and she keeps
the promises looking like the sixties. It's crazy on nationwide
deja w what my people post to do go to
schools named after the clan founder were around town? Is
I don't see why we frown in Native American students
forced to learn about when o'pea Sarah? How is that fair? Bro?
(51:58):
Some euro's unsung some months that's get monuments built for them.
But ain't be all a little bit of monster? We
crook you Hello, and welcome to our show. I'm Zoe
de Chanelle and I'm so excited to be joined by
(52:19):
my friends and cast Meats hant Us, Simone and Lamar
and Morris to recap our hit television series New Girl.
Join us every Monday on the Welcome to Our Show podcast,
where we'll share behind the scenes stories of your favorite
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that was one of years things you brought back from
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Welcome to Our Show podcast on the I Heart Radio app,
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The Gangster Chronicles podcast is a weekly conversation that revolves
around underworld and criminals and entertainers to victims, crime and
law enforcement. We cover all facets of the game. Gangster
Chronicles podcast doesn't glorify promotilsta of activities. We just discussed
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