Speaking to a crowd, which occasionally drowned him, Wheeler called it an “unconstitutional occupation” and ridiculed the tactics of federal officials as “abhorrent.” He later told CNN: “They are not properly trained, and we are demanding that they leave.”
Wheeler’s contempt for the way the federal police operate is an example of Portland’s history of dissent, and its impact on national politics.
“Our informal motto is Keep Portland Weird, which is why we like people who are not ordinary people,” said Randy Blazak, a former professor at Portland State University. “And that has left a lot of room on the margins, including the political margins.”
But he says that the image of “Portlandia”, of the lazy 90s driven by liberal ingenuity, is not entirely faithful to the history of the city.
“We have communists and anarchists and we also have neo-Nazis and fascists,” said Blazak, who also chairs the Oregon Coalition against hate crimes. He says the region is also home to various militias and anti-government groups.
That extreme Petri dish has made Portland a hotbed of protests. Its predominantly white population, almost 80%, also makes it attractive to white supremacists who see the city as fertile ground for an all-white ethnostat.
“It starts with the Oregon Trail, when the land that was given was only to the white settlers,” Blazak said. “It was a state that would remind us of being in the deep south, except in the Pacific Northwest.”
When far-right groups gather in Portland, he brings up the city’s prolific anti-fascist movement, commonly known as Antifa. The ideologies of both sides were on display during a high-profile conflict last August, when the far-right group Proud Boys arrived in Portland and encountered a wall of counter-protesters.
“Letting them come and protesting is really worse (than ignoring them),” an Antifa protester told CNN during a live interview last August. “They will get violence by whatever means necessary. If they become violent against Antifa, at least these are people who are prepared.”
But the Proud Boys, a group calling itself “Western chauvinists,” say they come to Portland to take a stand against left-wing groups in the city.
“As long as Ted Wheeler continues to please Antifa and does not call them by name, we will continue to come here, we will continue to waste his resources,” Proud Boys President Enrique Tarrio told CNN.
Although the protesters had some skirmishes, the tension did not explode into great violence as it did only a few months earlier. It was then that a bar fight brought Portland’s protest movement from the streets to the courts.
A seminal case
Justin Allen thrives in Portland’s supercharged world of political protest, which flares up on social media and sometimes bursts onto the streets. May 1, 2019 was one of those days.
His foray into the protest scene began after a crime that shocked Portland and reminded him of the city’s radical history.
In 2017, a man who had been seen at far-right protests in Portland boarded a light rail and allegedly reprimanded two black teenagers, one wearing a traditional Muslim hijab. Three other passengers intervened to help the teens, but were stabbed. Taliesin Myrrddin Namkai-Meche, 23, and Ricky Best, 53, later died. A third person, Micah Fletcher, survived.
“That is what liberalism grabs you,” the suspect, Jeremy Christian, said in a police car, according to an affidavit. He was convicted of murder in February.
That case would make Allen, 34, cry at a memorial a few days after the killings. He was convinced that he would have stepped in to help the girls, and the murders became a turning point in his life, he says.
For about a year, Allen took a camera and joined a protest movement. But instead of joining the liberals in street demonstrations, he infiltrated a group of far-right protesters. His exposure is now evidence in a criminal case related to a fight that erupted at Portland’s now-closed Cider Riot bar.
Allen was filming with far-right group Patriot Prayer as they discussed confronting left-wing protesters. Dozens of people taunted and taunted each other before punches were thrown and the fight spilled through the streets.
“I had seen a woman go unconscious with a steel baton hitting her on the back of the head,” Allen said.
Allen’s images show what happened before the riots, when members of the Patriot Prayer gathered a few blocks away, talking about carrying weapons and using pepper spray.
“You are a featherweight,” one man tells another in the video, encouraging the group to wait for reinforcements. “Are you going to fight a heavyweight? Or are you going to wait to be a heavyweight?”
Allen offered his video to authorities, claiming that it demonstrated that the riots were premeditated. Five followers of Patriot Prayer and its founder, Joey Gibson, were charged with riots. One of the defendants faces one assault charge for allegedly hitting a woman with a nightstick, according to the original complaint from the prosecutor’s office.
Allen was named a witness in court documents. He says he is nervous about some of the threats he has received on social media. But he is willing to speak as he prepares to testify at the next trial.
“We need to use official power,” he said. “It’s nice to have a short-term solution to prevent specific violent fascists from being violent at the moment … (but) if you have evidence of the crime, give that shit to the police.”
Gibson denies having committed any crime. He tells CNN that he accepted an invitation from others who were planning to go to Cider Riot but were only planning to broadcast live to Antifa’s followers.
“I just want people to see … you have a bar in your neighborhood where there are 50 people with guns and masks drinking beer outside,” said Gibson.
He maintains that, except for pushing a woman who got too close to him, he did not engage in violence. He only appears in Allen’s video at the bar, not during group prep.
One of Gibson’s attorneys, James Buchal, argues that Gibson cannot be legally treated as someone who wields power over the group.
“This is obviously a spontaneous and disorganized disaster, and all he does is stand up to the sprayed front,” Buchal said. “And occasionally (saying) ‘calm down,’ you know, ‘don’t throw things away.’ But he’s not in control of these people.”
‘A nation prepared for outrage’
In an interview with CNN last year, Mayor Wheeler said the city organizes 200 protests a year, with only “a very small percentage” resulting in violence and arrests. He insists that there is a 21st century reason why the city has the reputation it has.
“We are a nation prepared for outrage, where the most extreme voices receive the most attention on social media,” Wheeler said. “They get the most coverage on the news. And frankly, people get to the top of certain moves by being the most angry and outrageous.”
George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis sparked the latest round of protests in Portland. And while the protests in Minneapolis died out weeks ago amid Floyd’s family’s calls for peace, they have continued to rage in Portland.
On Tuesday, Wheeler told protesters during an interview on CNN that they “have been heard” and that “it is time to end it.” The protesters returned the following day and Wheeler picked up a megaphone, expressing his own outrage against the federal government.
“This is a use of the police force, the federal police, for political purposes,” he said. “That is not an acceptable solution anywhere in the United States.”
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