Behind the Bastards - Episode 8: Uprising: A Guide From Portland: The Return of the Right

Episode Date: January 25, 2021

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 EvansExecutive Producer: Sophie LichtermanWriters: Bea Lake, Donovan Smith, Elaine Kinchen, Garrison Davis, Robert EvansNarration: Bea Lake, Donovan Smith, Elaine Kinchen, Garrison Davis, Robert EvansEditor: Chris SzczechMusic: Crooked Ways by Propaganda Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar-smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse look like a lot of guns. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science?

And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences in a life without parole. My youngest? I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm No Settler. I'm an explorer. Spreaker.com, S-P-R-E-A-K-E-R. That's a long 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 at DiscoverTheForest.org. Brought to you by the United States Forest Service and the Ad Council. The Gangster Chronicles Podcast is a weekly conversation that revolves around the underworld. From criminals and entertainers to victims of crime and law enforcement, we cover all facets of the game. The Gangster Chronicles Podcast doesn't glorify or promote illicit activities. We just discuss the ramifications and repercussions of these activities. Because after all, if you play Gangster games, you are ultimately rewarded with Gangster Prizes. iHeart Radio is number one for podcasts, but don't take our word for it. Find the Gangster Chronicles Podcast on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

For most of the last decade, the city of Portland's national reputation was largely informed by the sketch TV series, Portlandia. The show began airing in 2011, right at the start of the relevance of the word hipster. It portrayed Portland as something of a stereotypically loony liberal paradise, a place where people know the names of the chickens served in their restaurants. This image dogged the city until 2017, 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 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 2007 as part of a local effort to stop a music festival from the neo-Nazi hammer skin nation.

The festival was supposed to be coming to Portland, and RCA was successful in stopping it. The organization has continued up 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 anti-fascist organizing in Oregon goes back a lot further than even RCA though. As we discussed in episode one, Oregon is the only state that was founded to be whites only. The Klan had an overwhelming presence here in the 1920s. In the early 20s, 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, and the Pacific Northwest in general, has held a special place in the hearts of white supremacists for more than a century.

In the 1970s and 80s, the Klan saw another surge, and Nazi terrorist groups like the Order carried out a string of successful attacks. White supremacist ideologues began floating the idea that the Pacific Northwest might be the perfect place for a white homeland. The idea was that, since the PNW 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 the now-defunct, Oregon-based organization, Volksfront. Covington coined the term Northwest Imperative to describe the white supremacist drive to 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 1987 and is probably the most direct ancestor to Rose City and Tifa and contemporary anti-fascist groups. For years, the men and women of anti-racist action, or ARA, battled fascists in the streets.

People were sometimes killed and often grievously wounded. Mike Crenshaw grew up in Illinois but moved to Portland in 1992. He quickly got involved in anti-racist organizing and one of the high points for fascist violence in Portland history. I went from not really seeing white folks at all and that they were interested in the authority to move into white communities where white people were definitely the majority and not just the authority but also everywhere. So there were experiences I had when we lived in smaller towns in Illinois where me and my brother would be like the only black kids in certain schools, you know. And then Minnesota often being in a grocery store or being in downtown, you know, you're one of very few black folks. So by the time I was a teenager, you know, I remember going down south like to visit people in Alabama and Mississippi and being afraid that the Klan was going to get us, you know. Being afraid that if we were out in the woods at night that the Klan was going to get us because the racial terror that was a reality for our people in America was something that we had learned about, you know.

And we had seen pictures of it in magazines and we might even know some people directly or indirectly who've been killed, you know, as a result of racism or mob violence or police brutality 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 of Minneapolis, I understood that the Klan, you know, since early childhood and being scared in the night and stuff like that. I understood it was a violent racist terror organization. So when I was in the hardcore punk scene, you know, as a black kid against one of the only people in that social scene, in that subculture that was black. When I heard that neo-Nazis were coming around, I had a very visceral reaction to it. I was like, wait a minute, these people that hide behind masks and where she, you know, to conceal their identity 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, I had almost immediately, I had a militant reaction.

I was like, oh, hell no. That's not acceptable. And you know, being a young man 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 just normal, you know, having to fight all the time and stuff. 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 1988 murder of Muglugeta Saraw. Saraw was a 28-year-old Ethiopian immigrant who lived in an apartment complex at the intersection of Southeast 31st Avenue and Pine Street.

His building was adjacent to the building where Nick Heiss, a member of the racist skinhead group East Side White Pride, also lived. On the night of November 13th, a Saraw returned from a party. Nick Heiss, 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 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 Metzger. At this point, Tom lived in Southern California, but over the last few years, his organization had increasingly propagandized to disaffected young white men in Oregon. The goal of Metzger's propaganda was to promote racial violence, and on the night of November 13th, he succeeded. According to eyewitnesses, Miski and two other Nazis pulled their vehicle up in front of Saraw'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. 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. Mulugeta Saraw died of his injuries. His killers were convicted of murder. They pled guilty and never faced trial. Morris D's, head of the Southern Poverty Law Center, sued Tom Metzger in civil court and won a landmark judgment against him. The lawsuit established the legal precedent that someone like Metzger had what's called vicarious responsibility for Saraw's death, because Metzger had good reason to know that his actions and the propaganda he put out would lead to violence. The murder of Mulugeta Saraw was a galvanizing moment for the Portland anti-racist community.

By the time Mike Crenshaw showed up, everyone knew what the stakes were. There was a group of friends that I was hanging with, you know, and we were all having fun with the anti-racist skinheads element, and that's who we wanted to be. And so when we heard these neo-Nazis had organized themselves with the leadership of the Klandonins into a gang called the White Knights, we decided that we were going to confront them, and we did it. We confronted them, we gave them an opportunity to get their views. We said, are you guys white power? And they said, yeah. And we said, look, the next time we see you, we're going to ask you again, and if you are still white power, then we're going to fuck you up, you know? That's what happened. Some of them changed, some of them... During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what? They were right.

I'm Trevor Aronson, and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI sometimes, you got to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy-voiced, cigar-smoking man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns. He's a shark, and not in the good badass way. He's a nasty shark. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to heaven.

Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI. How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus? It's all made up.

Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lance Bass, and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991, and that man, Sergei Krekalev, is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on Earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space, 313 days that changed the world.

Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. In addition to anti-racist action, the group Skinheads Against 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, documents the story in more detail than we can afford to do here. But it's fair to say that the murder of Mulugeta Saraw informs the tactics of many anti-fascists in Portland to this day. The basic idea is that, if you allow these people to organize and gather unopposed, they will commit murder. It's just a matter of time. In 2017, 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, of course, escalated further after Charlottesville.

And the year 2018 in the city of Portland was one of the bloodiest years of fascist violence faced by any city in the United States. We croak it. What's up guys? I'm Rashad Bilal. And I am Troy Millings and we are the host of the Earn Your Leisure podcast where we break down business models and examine the latest trends in finance. We hold court and have exclusive interviews with some of the biggest names in business, sport and entertainment. From DJ Khaled to Mark Cuban, Rick Ross and Shaquille O'Neal, I mean our alumni list is expansive. Listen in as our guests reveal their business models, hardships and triumphs in their respective fields. The knowledge is in-depth and the questions are always delivered from your standpoint.

We want to know what you want to know. We talk to the legends of business, sports and entertainment about how they got their start and most importantly how they make their money. Earn Your Leisure is a college business class mixed with pop culture. Want to learn about the real estate game? Unclear as how the stock market works? We got you. Interested in starting a trucking company or a vending machine business? Not really sure about how taxes or credit work? We got it all covered. The Earn Your Leisure podcast is available now.

Listen to Earn Your Leisure on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. My mission put myself and my friends in danger. Though it wasn't all bad. I'm gonna be real if you take. 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 1 of the Hit Murder Mystery Podcast, Lethal Lit, a Tig Torres mystery out now. And then tune in for all new thrills in Season 2, dropping weekly starting February 9th. Subscribe now to never miss an episode. Listen to Lethal Lit on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Professor, we're here on Eating While Broke and today I'm gonna break down my meal that got me through a time when I was broke. Listen to Eating While Broke on the iHeart Radio App, on Apple Podcasts 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 2017 on. As Trump ushered conservative nationalism into the mainstream, the vast mega movement brought street 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. Patriot Prayer formed alongside numerous other far-right and neo-fascist groups in 2016 to support the candidacy of Donald Trump. Throughout 2017 and 2018, 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 their 3%ers and street gangs like the Proud Boys, and also explicit white nationalist groups like Identity Europa. 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 how someone with the Youth Liberation Front explained their entry into activism and anti-fascism. Reminder, we've redubbed the audio with the voice actor because these children are regularly threatened with murder.

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 May 27, 2017. While Christian was eventually kicked out of a Patriot Prayer rally for openly sig-highling, the fact that Joey Gibson chose to hold a rally immediately after the murders suggests that many of the 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 newfound notoriety to hold events in cities throughout the West Coast, many of which ended in brawls. Through it all, Gibson maintained a close relationship with the Portland Police Bureau, 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 2020. In text messages 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 right-wing straight brawler, Tiny Tose, 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 arrest on the warrant unless there is a reason, unquote. The texts were from 2017 to 2018, but only released in February of 2019. Back in June of 2018, a rally that was originally planned to protest police violence turned into an antifascist rally after Patriot Prayer announced they would show up to counter the original protest. After some brawling in the streets, the Portland Police Bureau arrested multiple antifascists, 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 to tell you that he has probable 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 antifascist Patriot Prayer slash Proud Boy rally, Portland Police shot munitions at antifascists as they ordered them to disperse. One of these munitions, a flashbang grenade, was launched at the head of a self-described antifascist, Aaron Anthony Cantu.

The grenade split his skull open and embedded all the way through his bike helmet. Cantu was treated at the scene by several volunteer street medics and eventually was taken to the hospital. He suffered a traumatic brain injury with severe hemorrhaging. Had he not been wearing that bike helmet, he would have most certainly died. Fast forward to the start of 2020. 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 to do violence. But as soon as tear gas and beating started in May, those familiar fascist faces were nowhere to be seen. There were, however, constant rumors of, quote, Proud Boys circling the area, unquote. And every once in a while, a random local fascist would show up briefly. Also during the day, some would wave BLM flags in front of the JC. But for the most part, the right wing was mostly absent. Until August. August 16th started out like any normal day in Portland during the summer of 2020.

By this point, the Fed War was over and there were small gatherings of protesters throughout the city at a different location each night. On the 16th, 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 10pm, a small group who had appointed themselves as, quote, protest security attempted to aggressively escort out someone from the parks around the JC for unknown reasons. Quote, security led this person over to the nearby 7-Eleven, where they were more or less randomly jumped by someone else. We should say a bit here about the 7-Eleven near the Justice Center. Early in the summer, it had earned the nickname Comrade 7-Eleven, because the workers inside repeatedly pulled in protesters to rescue them from police bullrushes and clouds of tear gas. Unfortunately, as the summer wore on, the 7-Eleven became a gathering place for less savoury 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 see puddles of blood in the intersection leading to the 7-Eleven. So it was not super surprising that the person, quote, security pulled out of the protest, got jumped near the 7-Eleven. After getting punched, chased, and tackled, he ran away, but, quote, security stayed out in front of the 7-Eleven. A woman nearby approached them and asked what was going on, the quote, security, then got aggressive with her. Other people near the 7-Eleven, whose affiliation is unclear, began 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 suggest that most of the people involved in this fracas were very inebriated.

While all this was going on, another person arrived at the 7-Eleven. He parked his truck outside and attempted to de-escalate this tricky situation. A small crowd of around 20 people formed around the woman who had been attacked. Upon hearing this woman had, quote, maced people, the small group got aggressive. A few people threw water bottles. Someone who had been caught in the 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 de-escalate 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 through the open window. A couple people also began hitting the truck driver's 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 to the 7-Eleven and tried to stop people from attacking the truck driver and his girlfriend. The driver, still under attack from his window, revved his engine a few times, and when the road was completely clear, he drove away. But he crashed about three blocks away from the 7-Eleven. The self-appointed security people chased after on foot, and when they arrived at the crash site, one of the, 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 hitting the truck driver. But this agitated security dude was able to break free and brutally kick 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 to do with Portland's BLM 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 blogger and social media personality Andy Noe. Noe 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, Noe had also selectively live-streamed and filmed Antifa and Patriot Prayer slash Proud Boy rallies. At one of these rallies, he was assaulted with milkshakes and punched and shoved several times. This was a little after Noe had been present to selectively film a right-wing assault at a local left-wing hangout.

During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson, and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI sometimes, you gotta grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy-voiced, cigar-smoking man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns.

He's a shark. And not on the gun badass way. He's a nasty shark. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to heaven. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday.

I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI. How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus? It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lance Bass, and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991, and that man, Sergei Krekalev, is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on Earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart.

And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space. 313 days that changed the world. Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 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 discuss 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 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 No's twisted narrative more believable. No started posting 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 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 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 of people trying to provide first aid, Andy 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, 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. Andy 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 from the crowd in front of the 7-Eleven trying to hit this older woman, as many of the people from the actual protesting crowd tried to protect her. No makes the 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, 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. 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 would have you think that this is the BLM movement itself, not a mixture of random men who larp as security and drunk people at 7-Eleven. When interviewed by local media, the truck driver's girlfriend said that the people who attacked her and her boyfriend were not real protesters. We croak it.

Make sure to check out Drink Champs, your number one music podcast on the Black Effect podcast network. Host Nore and DJ EFN sat down with artist and icon, Yay, which Vulture called one of 2021's 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, Yay returned. And everybody had to sit back and watch the real leader. Check out Drink Champs conversation with Yay and many more legendary artists each and every Friday on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. When P.T. Barnum's Great American Museum burned to the ground in 1865, what rose from its ashes would change the world. Welcome to Grim and Mild Presents, an ongoing journey into 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 Sideshow.

So come along as we visit the shadowy corners of the stage and learn about the people who are at the center of it all. In a place where spectacle was king, we will soon discover there's always more to the story than meets the eye. So step right up and get in line. Listen to Grim and Mild Presents now on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more over at grimandmild.com slash presents. After 30 years, it's time to return to the halls of West Beverly High and hang out at the Peach Fit. On the podcast 90210MG, join Jenny Garth and Tori Spelling for a rewatch of the hit series Beverly Hills 90210 from the very beginning. We get to tell the fans all of the behind the scenes stories that actually happen.

So they know what happened on camera, obviously, but we can tell them all the good stuff that happened off camera. All the juicy details of every episode that you've been wondering about for decades. As 90210 Superfan and radio host, Sisani, sits in with Jenny and Tori to 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 10 years that we filmed that show. And you remember absolutely nothing of the 10 years that we filmed that show. Listen to 90210MG on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. For months leading up to this incident, the far right 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 16th, there had only been two truly noteworthy far right attacks on protests. One came courtesy of a former Navy SEAL, who allegedly threw an improvised explosive device at a small crowd of activists after a demonstration. And on August 15th, 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 rallyer Skyler Jernigan, 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 7-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 groups to plan a rally for the 22nd. The attendees 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 JC on the 22nd. But there were also neo-Nazis and militiamen. Individuals who showed up were only bound by two things. Performative support for police who assaulted leftists, and a desire 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 12 noon. By the time Garrison and I arrived on scene, several dozen right wingers were already present. Standing across the street were less than half that number of anti-fascists. The vibe was immediately tense, but not immediately violent. A pro-BLM bicycle protest 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 back the blue flags. While all this happened, more fascists and far right demonstrators continued to arrive.

Their numbers hit 100, then 200, while the forces countering them remained relatively small. At around 12-10 pm, a massive street fight broke out. As best I could tell, it 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 fistfights, mace, and shoving. I can't even tell you who started it. David Willis, a local anti-semitic protester, threatened me and a number of other protesters with an AR-15 style paintball gun loaded with paintballs that he'd 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 lull in the action after this initial explosion, but it did not last long. Violence commenced soon again, right when demonstrators pulled out tasers and beatsticks. Several of them formed up into a shield wall, organized by a neo-nazi with a baton who attempted to lead them into battle. At around 12-20 pm, the fighting waned again. Anti-fascist reinforcement showed up, and the two groups neared parity, 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-rad asking everyone to please stay nice.

For a little over a half hour, relative peace reigned. More left-wing demonstrators continued to show up, including Demetria Hester, who led the crowd in 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 1-10 pm, a right-wing demonstrator hooked a jug of OJ over his shield wall and into the anti-fascist ranks. This was followed by improvised flashbangs, 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. 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. At a little after 1-20 pm, as I rushed over to where a crowd of proud boys and other right-wingers were assaulting a person on the ground, beating them with sticks, a proud boy swung a baton at my camera hand, breaking it in two places. Numerous other people had 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 mass shield charges from the right wing that were repulsed only after significant injuries. The whole ugly event culminated around 2 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 and, to be fair, conversations that had characterized the early part of the day. The right-hooked 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 the right-wing shield wall. Despite being unarmed, they were assaulted en masse 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.

Unlike their opponents, who'd spent the summer getting tear-gassed, the right-wing had very few gas masks or respirators. They blinded themselves with their own poison. Then one anti-fascist hooked 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 IRS building, begging the federal agents inside for help. When they were denied help, the right-wing crowd retreated and gradually dissipated. August 22nd would mark the largest confrontation between right and left in Portland during the summer of 2020, but it was not the deadliest. That title would be earned the next weekend, when a Trump cruise, which consisted of several thousand pickup 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 mace into crowds from moving vehicles. The crowd this day, however, was less extreme than the smaller crowd on the 22nd. 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 sight of thousands of pickup trucks blaring flags and, of course, the assaults from a number of members of the Trump cruise meant that anxiety was extremely high among Portland protesters. And of 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 22nd, in addition to Skyler Jernigan'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 at the periphery of the caravan would shortly lead to the first fatality of Portland's 2020 protests. The conflict occurred as two right-wing demonstrators, both of whom had been present at the 22nd, were walking home. J. Danielson and Chandler Papas were regular Patriot Prayer marchers. Both carried handguns, batons, and mace.

The exact sequence of events is unclear, but as best we can tell from since-release surveillance footage, Papas and Danielson seem to have attacked a pro-BLM and anti-fascist demonstrator named Michael Reinhold. Reinhold responded to their mace with gunfire, killing Danielson and nearly hitting Papas. Reinhold ran and fled the scene immediately, disappearing into the city. For several days, his identity was unknown, and details around 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 Reinhold'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 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-fascist? Absolutely, because how can you not be? That only makes sense. Again, one of those things that gets thrown into the media as a buzzword that doesn't actually mean anything, and that's only doubled down on by our president and people like that who just continue to use words they don't understand because they think they're explosive. But in reality, the Antifa guys, the Antifa, the Rose, the city, Antifa, whatever, are really a bunch of guys that do research and stuff, for the most part, and get us information. I've long used contacts to get information.

Who is this gang? What is this tattoo on this white supremacist I've been seeing over here? That's really what I've used them for, the people that I know that identify as Antifa. But other than that, I mean, it's just an ideology, so it's weird to see people ask questions like, are you Antifa? And I'm like, what does that mean? 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. There's no Black Lives Matter chapter here, 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 is a Marxist organization run by, you know, the LGBTQ,

and say that it itself 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. I mean, most of us are not a part of any actual group of anything. We're just out here, you know, fighting for our rights and for the rights of our friends and neighbors. So all those labels are kind of funny, like, you know, we're not in a gang. We aren't the proud boys, the patriots, they all have their names and cliques and groups and nonprofits and all that. That's not really our thing. So I think that they have 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 trained to think in the way of cliques and groups and brands. You know, it's all about branding and how are you branded and do you wear matching outfits and that kind of stuff. So people just see BlackBlock and they see a brand and then 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 just not based in reality. Crème Brûlée also had some complicated thoughts on the intersection of anti-fascism in the Black Lives Matter movement. It's complicated and the source of a lot of tension for sure in the city right now and kind of throughout this entire thing.

Because you do have, you know, marches and actions that claim to be Black Lives Matter when a lot of the people there are there for like quote unquote anti-fascists for purely anti-cop reasons. And it's hard because you need bodies. But I don't know because that's like that's some like first 100 days thinking I feel like right now. 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 extremely important, but now I think it's extremely important and a lot of people are more aware of that. Direct action or the protests or like the mutual aid reach out.

I don't know has a defined like goal or defined like this is, you know, anti-fascist march. This is Black Lives Matter. 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 it needs to be, you know, leadership and position that knows that goal. And, you know, like I said earlier, kind of like thinking we need numbers for first 100 days thinking. And it kind of is. As you kind of learned bigger DA's and bigger actions when shit gets out of the pay wire, it can 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 everyone's not on the same page, then it's really hard for action to be effective and it's really easy for people to get into situations. So, like, yeah, smaller, more concise, more focused. Now I'm just talking about strategy. But yeah, the focus is important. And, you know, all of these, all these things, I guess, in terms of the relationship between, I guess, those two things. My perspective is black liberation, liberation for everybody. And I guess, from my perspective, the goal, I don't know if it's gold, but the through line to me personally is black lives matter.

At least, like, from a looking at it linearly standpoint, if we really are considering black lives matter, just a point in our country where black lives are mattering, then there will probably be less batches where we will have done some, you know, the entire country is like, yeah, black lives matter. That's a country where at least batches are in government, and that's a country where at least there's probably, if not abolished police, less police presence, or police that are set to black people, and police, since they're set to black people, clearly the least. If they're set to black people, they're set to everybody. So for me, through line and life, that's also letting evidence by that's what started all this is black lives matter. I don't know. I'm not happy. There's like, sub factions where there's kind of these multiple ideas existing within a movement about the goals. But that is the reality of the world we live in and can only work together because we do all have common goals.

The actual nuance in the discussion was lost in the national reaction to J. Danielson's death. As soon as Michael Reinal admitted to the shooting, claiming self-defense in a vice video, a manhunt ensued to bring him down. The US 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, at a campaign rally ahead of the November election, President Trump bragged that he had used the US Marshals as, more or less, a death squad, saying, We sent in the US Marshals. To 15 minutes it was over. 15 minutes it was over. We got him. They knew who he was. They didn't want to arrest him, and 15 minutes that ended. Any while. And they called themselves peaceful protestors. 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 26, but both sides were kept largely apart. Less than a week 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 22 as well.

The chats, which I reported on alongside Jason Wilson for Bellingcat and the UK Guardian, included threats to shoot members of the ACLU and legal observers, as well as embryonic plans to kidnap the governor of Oregon over the state's COVID-19 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 26, 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 their event. But no mass thousand-person street fight ensued this time. In fact, after the 26th, far-right street activities seemed to ebb for several months. There were small, back-the-blue rallies, which often involved right-wingers, mace-encounter protesters, and threatening them with firearms, and, of course, involved anti-fascists doing things like breaking the windows on their cars. But mass violence failed to ensue. It seemed, for a while, as if the far-right had spent itself in August of 2020. This would turn out to be untrue, of course. We're recording this episode just two weeks after the capital of the United States was seized and occupied briefly by hundreds of far-right fascist and white nationalist demonstrators on January 6, 2021. This event was signposted by an attack by 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 bellwether for far-right violence. What the anti-fascists of the Rose City endured in the late summer of 2020 came home to the capital of the entire country just a few months later. Go to schools named after the Klan founder. Word round town is, I don't see why we frowning. Native American students forced to learn about when O'Perra, Sarah, how is that fair, bruh? Some heroes unsung, and some monsters get monuments built for them, but ain't be all a little bit of monster, we croak it. Hello, and welcome to our show. I'm Zoey Deschanel, and I'm so excited to be joined by my friends and castmates Hannah Simone and Lamorne 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. That was one of your things you brought back from what? Because all professional basketball players.

Yeah, it's like a little seven-foot hoop. Listen to the Welcome to Our Show podcast on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families and the Ad Council. Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar-smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse look like a lot of guns. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price? Two death sentences in a life without parole. My youngest? I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.