So a group of “alt-right” provocateurs marched in the streets of Portland, Ore., last night and were met head on by the masked thugs of Antifa:
A demonstration billed as a march for “law and order” in the streets of Portland descended into chaos as rival political factions broke into bloody brawls downtown Saturday night. Members of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer and their black-clad adversaries, known as antifa, used bear spray, bare fists and batons to thrash each other outside Kelly’s Olympian, a popular bar on Southwest Washington Street. The melee, which lasted more than a minute, ended when riot cops rushed in and fired pepper balls at the street fighters.
The Portland Police Bureau reported seeing protest and counter-protest participants outfitted with hard knuckle gloves, knives and firearms earlier in the evening. Police said they made no arrests Saturday night, but will continue to investigate.
No arrests? No wonder the Patriot Prayer group was marching for law and order.
A march in Portland against police brutality last week drew headlines after law enforcement’s hands-off approach to the event was blamed for an encounter between protesters and an elderly driver, which outraged many, including Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson and his supporters.
The Wall Street Journal has some observations about what really happened on Oct. 6:
Flyers urged Portlanders to attend a protest: “27yo black father of 3 murdered by racist Portland Police.” Some 100 Black Lives Matter activists with the group Don’t Shoot Portland and their masked antifa allies answered the call to gather downtown Oct. 6. Fists in the air, they demanded “justice” for Patrick Kimmons, killed by police in late September. “Stop racist police terror,” read one sign at the rally. “Throw all cops in the trash,” declared another. Never mind that Kimmons had an extensive criminal record and was suspected of shooting two people before police responded.
As the crowd made their way to a nearby courthouse, they marched in the middle of the street, bringing traffic to a stop though they didn’t have a permit. Kent Houser, 74, made the mistake of attempting to pass them in his sedan. His car slowly pushed against a masked marcher. The crowd surrounded the car and started kicking it. After speeding down the block, Mr. Houser stepped out and was assaulted by the mob. They pushed him and smashed his car with clubs after he managed to get back inside the vehicle. No police were in sight even though the central precinct was blocks away.
Portland’s Resistance, a local social-justice group, then put out a call on Twitter asking the public to identify “this white man.” They published photos of him and his license plate with the message: “Make racists afraid again.” Mr. Houser has since received threatening phone calls identifying his wife by name. “I’ve lived here my whole life but I don’t want to go downtown anymore,” he says. “When the streets are commandeered by a sponsored group of angry, agitated ingrates and criminals, we have no city.”
In other words, Portland has now become a lawless city, one in which the authorities, including the mayor and the cops, turn a blind eye to a horde of American brownshirts taking over the city’s streets and threatening its residents. With the cops hors de combat, the pushback is coming from the “alt-right,” which is of course exactly what the violent Left wants: Charlottesville all over again.
Such lawlessness is increasingly typical here. Portland’s Resistance organized a protest after Election Day 2016 that turned into a riot. Masked vandals smashed stores and set fires, causing over $1 million in damage. Portland’s Resistance raised $55,000 on GoFundMe ostensibly to help pay for the rebuilding effort. Two years later only $2,450 is known to have been dispersed. This summer a mob occupied the area around the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement office for more than a month.
The Left really needs to think this through. At some point, someone is likely to get killed, as in Charlottesville, whether accidentally or in a street clash. The Northwest has been seeing violent protests since 1999, but the pace now appears to be quickening. Driven mad by the failure of their political program, the Left has now decided — at the urging of some prominent Democrats — to take to the streets. Calls for “civility” have been abandoned in favor of pugnacity. And all because the Left and the Democrats refuse to accept the results of the 2016 election.
Let them wear masks — we already know what their true faces look like.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member