When half a dozen people are shot all at once, it doesn’t normally take days to find out what happened and who was responsible. But a wall of police silence surrounds the act of fanatical political terrorism committed by a rightwing extremist in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday, February 19, 2022.
For days, the Portland news media reported almost nothing — because they didn’t know anything. When information did get out to the public, it was from witnesses speaking to reporters or posting online, not the police.
The game the police played was “it’s a chaotic scene and a complicated investigation” and “witnesses left the scene.” But they knew what happened and who was responsible. And they didn’t have to look for him; he’s in a hospital with a gunshot wound. They arrested, then released, the security guard who shot him; so they had already determined he was shot in self-defense.
The police also tried to bury the story by mixing and blending it with announcements about several other shootings in the Portland area over that weekend. They released many more details about those other shootings.
Here’s what I’ve learned about what happened (and it took a lot of searching).
A BLM group regularly gathered at a Portland park to protest against police violence; on this occasion they were planning a march to protest the February 2, 2022, killing of Amir Locke, a black man, by Minneapolis police in his apartment (details of that incident here).
A very angry man named Benjamin Jeffrey Smith, 43, who was radicalized by rightwing grievance propaganda, lived in an apartment complex across the street from the park. He was not popular with other building tenants.
His brother told a Portland newspaper that Smith often complained about the demonstrations at the park. A subletting roommate described him as “just a sad angry dude” who “talked about wanting to go shoot commies and antifa all the friggin‘ time. … He was angry at the mask mandates, he was angry at the damned liberals.” (See story here.) He hated homeless people, too. And he frequently expressed his hatreds and grievances on social media.
He cheered for Kenosha vigilante killer Kyle Rittenhouse, and ranted against “Jews” (see article here). According to comments on the HorsesAss.org blog, he hung out with Proud Boys, a violent rightwing group, and participated in acts of vandalism.
At around 8 p.m. on Saturday, Smith went to the park and yelled at four women directing traffic to leave, then pulled out a .45 caliber handgun and shot at them at close range.
He shot a 60-year-old black women in the head, killing her, and shot another person in the neck, who’s now paralyzed from the neck down. He wounded two other persons, one of whom was shot four times. He was then shot in the hip by a security guard with a rifle.
Authorities waited several days to charge Smith with murder, attempted murder, and other crimes.
Police characterized the slaughter as “a confrontation between an armed homeowner and armed protesters.” It wasn’t that at all, and when the police chief tried to peddle that b.s. at a news conference the next day, he was shouted down by activists unwilling to let him get away with lying about it.
Based on new court filings, the Guardian newspaper says (here) that Smith approached the protesters, yelling and demanding they leave. Several of the protesters told him to leave them alone and go home. Smith then challenged them to “make” him leave, “approached a person aggressively, who pushed Smith back,” and then pulled a gun and began spraying gunfire into the group..
There’s no longer any mystery about what happened in Portland last Saturday night. A rightwing lunatic, whose out-of-control anger, predilection for violence, and obsession with guns was well-known to those around him, approached a peaceful and lawfully assembled BLM group with intending to commit political violence. What did he need a gun for, if he only intended to ask them to leave?
The police refused to even call it a crime. They wouldn’t acknowledge a political motive, or the innocence of the victims. They didn’t want you to know a nut steeped in rightwing hate propaganda mercilessly gunned down unarmed and defenseless women who were directing traffic. But they can’t hide the facts of what happened anymore.
And there’s also this: “The absence of outrage from our city officials is speaking volumes to the community,” a resident said (see story here).
My wife just said, “The Portland police suck.” I can’t disagree with her.
Related story: Survivors of the shooting accuse the police of lying about it and “victimizing” them. See story here.
