So there has been rioting in Portland, Oregon basically every night for more than a year.
I doubt different people are showing up. It’s pretty much the same characters every night in the same places.
There is a ton of video of the rioting at Andy Ngo’s Twitter feed [1] including mug shots of Antifa folks who have actually been sent to jail (only to be let out right away with the city’s catch and release program).
It’s not exactly brain surgery to find out who these terrorists are, actually charge them with crimes, keep them in jail and prosecute them.
A novel idea, I know.
But Portland Mayor Democrat Ted Wheeler has been buds with the terrorists for a while and even went into the terrorist pit to talk to them at one time, only to be sworn at and tear gassed [2].
Ted has been an enabler of Antifa through most of their terrorism. He was even fine with them back in 2018 when they were blocking traffic [3] with the help of Black Lives Matter.
Over time, Wheeler hasn’t shown any real interest in stopping Antifa from their nightly rioting and refused help from the National Guard when Trump offered it last year.
Now all of a sudden it looks like Wheeler wants the public to help him [4] find out who’s behind the violence. He said, “Our job is to unmask them, arrest them, and prosecute them.”
Yes, all of a sudden, he has figured out that there are violent terrorists in his city. He said in a video statement on Friday, “They want to burn, they want to bash, they want to intimidate, they want to assault.”
No kidding Ted. We’ve been watching it for a year.
Wheeler said, “Our community needs to resume their lives. People need to go back to work. Employers need to be able to reopen.”
Last week about 80 people caused $20,000 in property damage to a Boys and Girls Club in northeast Portland. Two weeks ago, there were gunshots and broken windows at a church and anti-police graffiti at a concert hall.
Is that what changed Ted’s mind?
Nope.
It looks like it’s a turf war. Protesters vs. rioters. Black vs. white.
It’s Black Lives Matter vs. Antifa and that is what appears to have caused Wheeler’s change in attitude.
It’s the black community vs. the elitist white young and middle-aged guys (and their girlfriends) with Molotov cocktails, many of whom aren’t even from Oregon.
An open letter was sent to the Antifa terrorists which you can see on the We Out Here Magazine [5]. It’s from black protesters who see the Antifa rioting as detrimental to their black liberation plans.
This letter was posted a week before Wheeler’s change in attitude towards the Antifa rioters.
In the letter, the black protesters lecture the Antifa rioters by saying, “Understand that doing damage to us, our communities and our resources undoes the work we do.”
They continued, “Black people are not a monolith, and having a complicit black person in your planning space does not indicate support from the black community. For decades, efforts towards black liberation have suffered at the hands of both well-meaning allies and predatory opportunists, and over the last year we have watched as people have profited from and damaged our movement without our consent or approval.”
The letter closes with, “Revolutionary times call for revolutionary measures, but success requires thoughtful action. Actions that neither increase solidarity nor broadcast purpose while making the lives of local black communities more difficult are not acceptable.”
Mayor Wheeler acknowledged the letter by saying, “If BLM leaders can show the courage to stand up to the mob, then we all should.”
If Ted really wants to find the Antifa terrorists, the Trump-hating FBI can definitely give them some pointers.
The FBI has gone all out to round up anyone in the vicinity of the Capitol on January 6th to find Trump supporters.
They’ve used video surveillance, Google location data, facial recognition on Instagram posts, they’ve raided information in banks, used license plate readers, used cell phone data [6], distributed wanted posters on social media and more.
Finding people is just a matter of the willingness of the law enforcement agency in charge to do their job. And if a Trump supporter is the target, it’s all hands on deck.
Bottom line: the law enforcement community is more than capable of figuring out who the Antifa terrorists are, especially since they’ve been rioting for a year in the same location.