Portland riots

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As hundreds of protesters gathered Monday outside a condo building where the mayor lives in the upscale Pearl District of Portland, Ore., some set off fireworks, sprayed graffiti and broke windows. After someone tossed a burning object inside, police pushed the crowd away and made 19 arrests.

The next day, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler (D) sent a letter to his neighbors letting them know he planned to move out of his $840,000 condo in response to a string of protests targeting the building, the Oregonian reported.

“I want to express my sincere apologies for the damage to our home and the fear that you are experiencing due to my position,” he said in the letter, according to the newspaper. He said the move would be “best for me and for everyone else’s safety and peace.”

He’s not the only elected official leaving home in response to demonstrations that have increasingly targeted public officials where they live, including the Democratic mayors of Chicago, Seattle, Pittsburgh and St. Louis.

St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson (D) has temporarily relocated from her Central West End home, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on Wednesday, after her neighborhood landed in the national spotlight when two neighbors emerged in June to point weapons at protesters.

In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) has assigned police to control access to her street to keep protesters away, citing threats she has received. Police have locked down Lightfoot’s block using a local ordinance that bans even peaceful protests in residential neighborhoods.

For some on the right, the Democratic mayors abandoning their homes to escape protests underscores what they argue is a failure to maintain public order. The president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., reacted to the news of Krewson’s move by tweeting a GIF with the caption “Nothing to see here. Please disperse.” When he learned that Wheeler was leaving his condo, he simply tweeted, “Amazing.”

But Democratic mayors have roundly rejected the idea that protests are spiraling out of control. Days before Wheeler announced that he would leave his condo, he again rejected President Trump’s offer to send federal police to the city. Federal officers inflamed protests in the city in July, escalating overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations and pulling thousands of people into Portland’s streets.

Wheeler has had a contentious relationship with protesters. When federal police were tear gassing protesters nightly, the mayor waded into the crowd as his detractors aggressively heckled him. Although Wheeler has said he supports the protesters’ racial justice aims, he has also defended local police’s use of force and painted a small number of individuals who set fires as “attempting to commit murder.”

Krewson described her decision to leave as an attempt to “de-escalate” the protests in St. Louis.

Several demonstrations have targeted her home, but one on June 28 sparked a major controversy when two White lawyers pointed guns at protesters marching past their house in a gated community on the way to the mayor’s property. Mark and Patricia McCloskey, both in their 60s, were charged with felonies for unlawful use of a weapon. They have said they were defending their property. The incident has become a flash point, with the GOP embracing the couple, who spoke at the Republican National Convention last week.

Krewson said she and her husband temporarily left their home in July.

“We did it to de-escalate the situation, to save police resources, and importantly because our neighbors were being disturbed and threatened,” Krewson said in a text message, the Post-Dispatch reported. “I ran for this job — my neighbors did not.”

Krewson and Wheeler’s decisions to leave home come amid an ongoing offensive by Trump against Democratic mayors.

On Wednesday, the president tweeted an attack on “weak mayors and lawless cities” that “let anarchists harm people, burn buildings, and ruin lives and businesses.” His administration announced an intention to withhold federal funds from cities identified as “anarchist jurisdictions,” specifically pointing to protests in Seattle, Portland, New York and Washington.

The suspected killer of a right-wing protester in Portland was reportedly armed on Thursday night when he was shot and killed by law enforcement officers who were trying to arrest him in Washington state.

Michael Forest Reinoehl, 48, was fatally shot by four officers after he ran from a car parked at an apartment complex armed with a gun, police told The Olympian.

“The suspect came out to the car,” Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer told the newspaper. “They attempted to put him into custody and shots were fired.”

Thurston County sheriff’s Lt. Ray Brady said officers opened fire after Reinoehl pulled out a gun.

Chad Smith and Chase Cutler, two witnesses to the shooting in the city of Lacey, told the paper a man left a vehicle with what appeared to be an assault rifle and fired dozens of shots at nearby unmarked SUVs.

Officers then returned fire, the witnesses said, striking the man.

Reinoehl died at the scene. He was wanted by authorities for the shooting death of Aaron “Jay” Danielson, 39, at a protest in Portland.

Hours before the shooting, an interview aired on Vice News in which Reinoehl insisted he acted in self-defense and “had no choice” when he shot Danielson after an evening of clashing protests in Portland on Aug. 29.

A 36-year-old Seattle man threatened to blow up a Portland police station with an “undetectable” bomb unless police stood down from Black Lives Matter protests in the Oregon city, the US Attorney’s Office announced Thursday.

Kyle Robert Tornow was arrested Wednesday and accused of using the Portland Police TrackIT communication system to warn cops on July 24 that there was a bomb at the stationhouse, and if he were busted “others will take my place and immediately detonate the bomb,” the US Attorney’s Office in Washington state said in a release.

“I am going to bomb a police precinct in Portland OR,” the threat said, according to a federal complaint filed Wednesday. “The bomb is already in place and has been packaged in a way that prevents detection from canine officers. Unless your officers disengage your war with the citizens of Portland I will blow up this precinct.”

“You are weak,” it said. “We are strong, many and fluid in nature… This is a felony threat. Please take this seriously to avoid death.”

There is no indication that a bomb had actually been planted.

The FBI tracked the email address used in the threat, [email protected], and traced it to Tornow, prosecutors said.

He is charged with making a threat to damage or destroy a building, and faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.

Tornow has prior arrests for car theft, harassment and drug offenses, the federal complaint said.

Portland Police arrested over 50 people during fiery demonstrations on Saturday night, the 100th night of protests in the city since the death of George Floyd in late May.

The arrests came after some people in the crowd threw "multiple fire bombs" at officers, one of which set a community member on fire, police said. Officers located the injured person, who was treated by Portland Fire and Rescue and then taken to a hospital in a private vehicle, police said.

The night's events began as crowds gathered at Ventura Park and marched at about 9 p.m. local time toward East Portland Community Policing Center, according to a statement released by Portland Police. Police said that many people in the crowd wore black clothing, carried large shields and dressed in protective gear, including helmets, gas masks and body armor.

It was clear that the intent of the crowd was not peaceful protest," police said in a statement.

Saturday night's demonstrations did not include any gun violence. Still, police said the use of fire bombs presented an "extreme danger to life safety," and they declared a riot and ordered people to leave the area.

Portland Police said individuals in the crowd began throwing fireworks and mortars at officers, while others were seen throwing rocks. One person had a "wrist-rocket" type of slingshot launching objects, police said.

A sergeant was directly struck by a commercial-grade firework, which burned through his glove and injured his hand, police said. Several officers and troopers were struck by rocks in the head, arms, shoulders, and feet, police said. Officers used tear gas and other crowd control munitions, while also making targeted arrests, police said.

Some people in the crowd were seen lighting dumpsters, garbage cans, and wooden pallets on fire in the streets.

In all, over 50 people were arrested, police said. At least two of those arrested were wearing body armor, one person had a dagger and another person had a knife, police said.

The court records allege that Reinoehl can be seen in the surveillance footage at that time at the northeast corner of the intersection. He allegedly then crosses southbound on Southwest Third Avenue with three others, stares east down Southwest Alder Street, then continues.

Danielson and a friend are then seen rounding the corner from the east and turning south onto Southwest Third Avenue, according to the court records. Reinoehl looks back toward them, "but continues walking and begins reaching toward his waistband," the affidavit states.

According to court records, Reinoehl then concealed himself and waited in the garage entry and watched as Danielson and his friend walked by. "Danielson appears to be holding a can in his right hand and what appears to be an expandable baton in his left hand," the affidavit states.

After they walk by, Reinoehl emerges from the garage "while still reaching toward the pocket or pouch on his waistband," the court documents allege. An unidentified person looks back toward Reinoehl, and Reinoehl and that second person follow Danielson and his friend as they cross westbound across Southwest Third Avenue, according to the affidavit. "The shooting occurs shortly thereafter and is not captured on the surveillance video," it states.

Immediately after the shooting, Reinoehl can be seen again in the surveillance footage with his right arm raised while facing toward Danielson, according to court documents. The second person runs away, then Reinoehl allegedly turns and runs north then east on Southwest Alder Street.

Based on timestamps, the entire incident as described happened within one minute, according to the affidavit.

The city of Portland can not or will not enforce the law. This has left a vacuum that bad people have filled.

Now it is paintballs and pepper spray and Molotov cocktails, unless something changes it will be just a matter of time until it is automatic weapons.

Basically what it has come down to in Portland and elsewhere is that if you want to participate in a political protest you better come with some sort of weapon unless you like to get beaten to a pulp or sprayed with a toxic substance or worse. The governments in Portland and Oregon have failed in its most basic duty to protect the constitutional rights of its citizens.

People have already came to protests wearing gas masks, carrying leave blowers. They gotta protect themselves from police force and I think the Portland's police agenda is to silence them and the protesters are not having it so they are coming with armor. All the police are doing here is adding fuel to the fire. I'd say leave them alone and let them protest and there will be no violence.

My husband grew up in North Portland where the majority there were black so he saw racism from the police. I never saw it because I didn't live in a area where the majority were black so I didn't see police cars all the time and officers and apparently this is what we call white privilege. I found out police will patrol black areas more.

Not only is this happening in Portland, this happens in other cities too but Portland is just in the spotlight. But hey, at least it is getting our city noticed world wide and maybe it will keep people from moving here since we always hated newcomers because they were making it way too expensive and renting people out of their apartments creating more homelessness. Now I can't go anywhere anymore without seeing a campsite being set up. It's been like this since around 2013 so good thing me and my husband got a house in time.

President Donald Trump during a Fox TV interview praised the fatal police shooting of Michael Reinoehl, the self-described Portland antifascist accused of killing a right-wing Trump supporter, calling it appropriate “retribution.”

Trump characterized Reinoehl’s alleged shooting of Aaron “Jay” Danielson in downtown Portland on Aug. 29 as a “cold-blooded” killing and said he pushed two and a half days later for Reinoehl’s arrest.

“I put out, ‘When are you going to go get him?'" Trump said Saturday on the “Justice With Judge Jeanine” show.

“And the U.S. Marshals went in to get him. And, in a short period of time, it ended in a gun fight. This guy was a violent criminal. And the U.S. Marshals killed him,” Trump said. “I will tell you something, that’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution when you have crime like this.”

The president went on to say: “There can’t be guys standing up that want to fight. They want to fight. You can’t throw bricks at people with shields on.”

On Sept. 3, four officers from three different Washington law enforcement agencies fired at Reinoehl after confronting him outside an apartment near Lacey, Washington. The officers were part of the U.S. Marshals Pacific Northwest Violent Offender Task Force.

n response to Trump’s remarks, Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, wrote Sunday on Twitter: “So the President is admitting that federal authorities killed Michael Reinoehl for ‘retribution’? We are on our way to normalizing the execution of criminal suspects before arrest, trial or conviction. It’s that serious.”

A day after Reinoehl was killed, U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr issued a written statement, calling the “tracking down of Reinoehl” a significant accomplishment and that the streets are safer “with this violent agitator removed.”

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown declared a state of emergency Friday as she announced that state troopers and sheriff’s deputies would be sent to Portland through the weekend to help police, in the state’s largest city, monitor a weekend rally by the right-wing group Proud Boys and counter protests by liberal groups

Demonstrations that went into a lull during Oregon’s recent wildfires resumed this week, fueled by a Kentucky grand jury’s decision to not indict officers in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor.

Brown told reporters she is exercising her gubernatorial authority to place Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese and Oregon State Police Superintendent Travis Hampton in charge of Portland’s public safety on Saturday and Sunday. Brown said that Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler supports the plan.

Under the state of emergency declaration, Oregon State Police and Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office will have the authority to set curfews and close roads.

In addition, Hampton said officers sent to Portland could use tear gas and less-lethal ammunition to disperse crowds if the protest and counter protests becomes violent or if people’s lives are in danger.