[News] White supremacist fascist mass shooter opened fire at an anti-police brutality demonstration/vigil in Portland,

[Anti-Imperialist News]

        *Walidah Imarisha*
        <https://www.facebook.com/walidah.imarisha.7?__cft__[0]=AZXPox_Rflc4YxbqNx7wrhmScApjIQ0b_BFMFA-ZXPWSz8wU2xkyrb3USAdxY4gHcI_lBn5YBCVw7CARakKnsNTTtEiUOrVYKqOyNFkMZfXna268Qo_cksZ5LRIAD53JuuTp7zSbhaLBbZRSdwOgGRO2hCNP0Qj5efkDP76Jord5ew&__tn__=-UC%2CP-R>

https://www.facebook.com/walidah.imarisha.7


February 23, 2022

For those who don’t know, or don’t know the whole story, Saturday night 
Feb. 19, a white supremacist fascist mass shooter opened fire at an 
anti-police brutality demonstration/vigil here in Portland, murdering 
one person, seriously injuring four others.

I want to share info because the story put forward by authorities and 
the press has been a clear concerted effort to continue the 
criminalization and targeting of Black communities and those who protest 
and fight for justice.

Justice for Patrick Kimmons, the organization that hosted the event, 
went live on insta Monday night - you can watch here: 
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CaQ9_0nBLSq/... 
<https://www.instagram.com/tv/CaQ9_0nBLSq/?utm_medium=copy_link&fbclid=IwAR2g3JlVNCMf0aFow7YL8OX3pH5gVJViFnRJgFdsxyNCXtB8HtHjVoRXrEs>
Keep up with them on fb or Instagram – they said they will be returning 
to regular demos/vigils soon.

If you want to donate to the victims and their families, here is the 
gofundme link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/stand-with-portland... 
<https://www.gofundme.com/f/stand-with-portland?utm_campaign=p_cp%20share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer&fbclid=IwAR3hh_UZrqvSo2wU3K-lwtDQLqsw8dzPy7AOuUcN1bKkd_4wtlHyEYG3qyU>

The event, hosted by Justice for Patrick Kimmons, is part of an ongoing 
years-long Black-led vigil/demonstration space to get justice for 
Patrick Kimmons, a 27-year-old Black man murdered by Portland police in 
2018. It is led by his mother, Letha Winston, an incredible community 
organizer and leader. The demo Saturday was to fight for justice for 
Patrick Kimmons, for Amir Locke, for Daunte Wright, tying together the 
local history/present of resistance to police murdering Black people 
with the national movements in support of Black lives.

All of this is what I know and have learned from eyewitness reports and 
continuing research (I wasn’t there, but wanted to share as much of a 
counternarrative to my community as possible):
JFPK is a longstanding march/vigil happening weekly for years started 
and led by Patrick’s mother. It is a space created and held out of Black 
love and resistance. It is a space rooted in Portland’s Black community 
and its continuous and nonstop resistance to the anti-Blackness 
structural violence here.

Before the march began, 43-year-old Ben Smith approached four unarmed 
women doing traffic safety (stopping traffic so the march can cross 
streets safely). They were around the corner and about a block away from 
where others had gathered. Smith menaced and yelled at them, calling 
them “violent terrorists,” said they were the reasons for all the 
violence in Portland, called them c*nts, then within a couple minutes, 
pulled out a gun and shot multiple times, hitting them in multiple places.

He murdered June Knightly, a 60 year-old white woman with a cane. 
Knightly was a longstanding member of the Portland activist community. 
She put her life on the line again and again doing traffic safety, 
putting her body between people asking for justice and those who would 
destroy them. And apparently she did so courageously again on Saturday 
night. One of the survivors said, “Her name was June Knightly. She was a 
protector of the innocent, an advocate for the vulnerable, a beautiful 
person, and my dear friend. She died putting herself between a dangerous 
man and three unarmed women, including me.”

Two others who were shot are in critical condition, and one is paralyzed.

Multiple reports have said the shooting only stopped when one of the 
folks doing security for the march shot Smith, stopping him before he 
could murder and injure anyone else. At the writing of this, Smith is 
still in the hospital in critical condition.

This horrific white supremacist mass shooting was followed by a 
conspiracy of support by the police, city government, and local media 
(which national media parroted in the scant articles they wrote about it).

Over and over again it was framed as a “confrontation” between “an armed 
homeowner” and “armed protestors.” The “both sides” framing allows 
responsibility to be partially shifted to the people marching, rather 
than calling it was it was, an unprovoked attack on a peaceful 
gathering. Calling him a “neighbor” and worse “homeowner” is a racist 
and classist frame that codes him as a white man protecting his property 
and neighborhood from invading rabble (Police chief Chuck Lovell later 
said it was an unintentional “mistake” to mislabel him as a homeowner). 
Media said Smith had no political affiliation – more on that later but 
absolutely false, and a blatant attempt to deny the real motivations of 
this white supremacist. The government and media continue to frame it as 
part of the “tragic wave of gun violence” happening here in Portland, 
which is racially coded language, and a clear attempt to blame the Black 
community for this attack, and to blame the larger defund/abolish police 
movement when that couldn’t be farther from the truth (the police’s 
behavior in this instance couldn’t more clearly indicate why they should 
be immediately defunded and abolished).

The facts:

    - Ben Smith was not a homeowner at all, and even if he was, that had
    nothing to do with him leaving his house, going down the street and
    murdering people who hadn’t engaged with him at all
    - He collected and owned multiple guns (apparently legally?) so any
    attempt to shift this to a discussion of unregulated gun violence is
    a decoy
    - He attacked and murdered without provocation, even as the traffic
    volunteers were trying to nonviolently deescalate the situation
    - He shot people in the neck, in the face – this wasn’t firing into
    the air to scare people, it was premeditated murder and attempted
    murder. Smith shot to kill
    - He has a long history of white supremacist, fascist, anti-gay,
    anti-Semitic, anti-homeless, anti-mask sentiments as shown by his
    reddit account:
    https://twitter.com/IGD_News/status/1495956046908735492
    <https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FIGD_News%2Fstatus%2F1495956046908735492%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1lCSzxd4qqSXS4a6-BQs-3sW79esJjjDMxl2PxaPDVdXW6BXhd2T2bmqc&h=AT3zwDJYA_9eZkQw4TWtxn6my2LOG0JW3VWic8EYsDGW2899H8rOHuFhjGUekHBmVxMcptHPo-0YYi1nMsNqeOd2_xZmkFD23473rCM0i61H_jAfybv8k3vy6xOPYpee_8YiIWnER6YRWT4hi4ec&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT1c0PfXYnAz00aCS9Yx-CpMzvU0PyYPNsYgd5BcznkmQKu9xQcgoz-nikKOvqG2oGnTZ417hKFArGktvLcbFFeLRRpSWoacUzJ14v3-Y3Npl38GJK71db2tMWbOkwIkyx2DccZHuMsqVytqImJdliEFPKQBuzPbZld80uEogIH2k9prGvfxB5Sl>
    - The march hadn’t even reached Smith’s house at all. It was just
    the small group of traffic volunteers there in preparation for the
    march coming by. Organizers of the march said they were around the
    corner and down the street, that they actually marched for less than
    a minute before the shots were fired, had barely left the sidewalk
    and hadn’t even started chanting yet. The idea that Smith felt
    threatened or was “protecting his home/community” is obviously
    asinine on any level, but it even more so in this situation

There were so many folks who saved lives that day, but all of them were 
with the march - not a single one was with police or government. Letha 
Winston called off the march the minute shots were fired, stopping 
everyone before they came close to him. The person doing security who 
immobilized Smith saved countless lives, because who knows how many more 
guns and bullets Smith would have fired if he had been free to continue 
walking towards the marchers. And street medics performed life-saving 
aid for those shot, despite police interference and harassment.

Of course that’s not the narrative told by Portland Police Bureau (PPB), 
which from the instant it happened seemed to be more intent on 
protecting Smith and helping prepare his defense at trial than 
addressing the people bleeding out on the street. PPB wouldn’t even 
release his name or confirm if he was under arrest or not. They did not 
even file charges against until late Tuesday, Feb. 22 after immense 
outcry. However, they did bring charges against the person who stopped 
Smith’s rampage (though those were dropped Feb. 22). The fact that the 
police charged the person who stopped a white supremacist mass shooter 
days before the mass shooter himself says everything you need to know 
about the daily functioning and purpose of police.

It wasn’t police or even journalists who found out Smith’s name. It was 
diligent and tireless independent researchers and antifa investigators 
(and folks in the furry community, which Smith had been pushed out of 
because of his fascist racist statements – they have known he would 
commit violence for years and tried multiple times to sound the alarm: 
https://twitter.com/ariadneconill/status/1496175268179943427 
<https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fariadneconill%2Fstatus%2F1496175268179943427%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2vmrB4EfCphMKTpIQ4o0JapHRk7kyt4ib1RzNzgB5JP66Mn0ieopBRiKU&h=AT2Ge3YWqkMu4VFwTN9Owdf8U-MTJOY5qKD7Auo3njEAbkchyGZ1EsF8jVKEXI49Ksx8OERZYQIueqRICvGBT-jponi-eQEO6SVcjvp4xptt1A4oPHtH1XoDUXEreiYv-sIABM8bic8ZTdIBddbR&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT1c0PfXYnAz00aCS9Yx-CpMzvU0PyYPNsYgd5BcznkmQKu9xQcgoz-nikKOvqG2oGnTZ417hKFArGktvLcbFFeLRRpSWoacUzJ14v3-Y3Npl38GJK71db2tMWbOkwIkyx2DccZHuMsqVytqImJdliEFPKQBuzPbZld80uEogIH2k9prGvfxB5Sl> 
) that not only found his name but very quickly found mountains of 
evidence of his reactionary right wing white supremacist beliefs, and 
his explicitly stated desire to murder BLM activists and antifa. They 
even found him speaking out in support of Kyle Rittenhouse, clearly an 
inspiration for his horrific actions.

The only reporting I’ve seen on this that has been worth anything at all 
has been in the Portland Mercury, like this story: 
https://www.portlandmercury.com/.../suspected-shooter-in... 
<https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.portlandmercury.com%2Fblogtown%2F2022%2F02%2F22%2F38645257%2Fsuspected-shooter-in-normandale-park-mass-shooting-identified%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1WCIkH-hjdxz8IcCgrPmy0hWhtwRc46mCiqB9Mnr6hogCU4xBsHsCHnVE&h=AT3RNHX2C-PiDaJksS8oj1uWpbraN6KDr0RIvO_WEwSQBq05Y0uA8dVFlqBVkEy-DoiaJtzFArisso4g5BmTZRxSUpR_c2YEu2Jy5-CJ20JKNN2XXuzF4rh0IKCXLT9YiWiwtKE0nchQzz_Au19C&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT1c0PfXYnAz00aCS9Yx-CpMzvU0PyYPNsYgd5BcznkmQKu9xQcgoz-nikKOvqG2oGnTZ417hKFArGktvLcbFFeLRRpSWoacUzJ14v3-Y3Npl38GJK71db2tMWbOkwIkyx2DccZHuMsqVytqImJdliEFPKQBuzPbZld80uEogIH2k9prGvfxB5Sl>
In this article, the PPB spokesperson said, "Unfortunately, not all 
cases are simple. In some, a determination has to be made of who is a 
suspect and who is a victim. Cases can be fluid, and as additional facts 
are learned, who is a victim and who is a suspect can also change."

I can’t imagine a more blatantly brazen statement in light of what has 
happened. In fact, the only people the police have expressly blamed at 
this point are the person who stopped Smith and the witnesses who 
refused to speak to them and give information after the shooting. They 
refused because they understood that the police are there to provide 
cover and support for street level white supremacist fascist violence, 
and that it is inextricably linked to their institutional white 
supremacist fascist violence.

PPB’s false narrative and the media’s perpetuation of it was so awful, 
it apparently prompted one of the shooting survivors to share their name 
and identity in a New York Times article (which said without them, the 
story would only include the PPB version, which is just awful and 
abusive journalism) so the survivor could tell the real story. They did 
this knowing it would make them a target of reactionary right wing 
violence and doxing. But telling the truth was more important to them 
than their safety:
https://twitter.com/dontgetket.../status/1496389446605881344 
<https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fdontgetkettled%2Fstatus%2F1496389446605881344%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3hh_UZrqvSo2wU3K-lwtDQLqsw8dzPy7AOuUcN1bKkd_4wtlHyEYG3qyU&h=AT1-iJszAuzzhHiUppy6d6TA_yg0t5xjUdqQnAkGDdnmd-h-sgh7gTt7JFUhDSZqPML2rJrn6Sb5RVfeKYATQAIZwDVHnj7e1aQ-BRd_XYz4j0zFd6C6U8Lon2xLPh2VdS9371P27XQ4cGOy4Iaj&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT1c0PfXYnAz00aCS9Yx-CpMzvU0PyYPNsYgd5BcznkmQKu9xQcgoz-nikKOvqG2oGnTZ417hKFArGktvLcbFFeLRRpSWoacUzJ14v3-Y3Npl38GJK71db2tMWbOkwIkyx2DccZHuMsqVytqImJdliEFPKQBuzPbZld80uEogIH2k9prGvfxB5Sl>

And, of course, Portland mayor Ted Wheeler has done nothing but further 
the “both sides” lie and the racist “gun violence” false narrative. 
Wheeler has spent years providing cover for the brutal and continual 
police attacks against protests, against communities of color, against 
the houseless community, and more. He has spent years criminalizing 
dissent. He, in fact, explicitly refused to take accountability for 
inciting violence during last year’s Black Lives Matter/anti police 
brutality protests when he said, “let’s make them hurt a little” about 
folks fighting for justice. At a press conference after the mass 
shooting, Wheeler was unapologetic and said he did not regret saying it. 
Wheeler has spent years providing first tacit support for reactionary 
right wing violence from groups like the Proud Boys, and has time and 
time again given them free reign to terrorize and brutalize Black and 
Brown working class communities and the entire city. (This is a more 
general thread of right wing violence allowed in Portland: 
https://twitter.com/RoseCityAn.../status/1496250392916938754 
<https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FRoseCityAntifa%2Fstatus%2F1496250392916938754%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1x4ltzRJuciX8MChTnDqSBkSG8M5zQmLnmRIgqaRSXM9YmpFMVtxAhvy4&h=AT3Hjc7dagMGRwDHw-vXdOAPTArP1XELZoxta4CHci4YDgKWFHV23ZgGSehjRWWWg4lQStqtBkfGfi_JNc10mGt_jgwM5bkPo9HmUP-L9sSlfTPEZWbvXJr9VBAgHIOQ2kxnwBL0wQLgYQYZaj6_&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT1c0PfXYnAz00aCS9Yx-CpMzvU0PyYPNsYgd5BcznkmQKu9xQcgoz-nikKOvqG2oGnTZ417hKFArGktvLcbFFeLRRpSWoacUzJ14v3-Y3Npl38GJK71db2tMWbOkwIkyx2DccZHuMsqVytqImJdliEFPKQBuzPbZld80uEogIH2k9prGvfxB5Sl>)

Wheeler’s statements on the shooting didn’t even mention the victims, 
didn’t offer condolences at all, didn’t even acknowledge the murder and 
maiming. At his press conference Tuesday, Feb. 22 (3 days after the 
shooting), he said he had not spoken to any of the victims or the 
victims’ families. He had already gone into planning how to weaponize 
this attack against protestors, against people fighting for justice, 
against Black communities. Other city council members and government 
officials, by and large, have just continued these same racist narratives.

Tuesday Feb. 22 the Multnomah County District Attorney’s office filed 
charges against Smith: one count of second degree murder, four counts of 
attempted first degree murder with a firearm, as well as four counts of 
assault with a firearm. This is almost certainly and almost solely 
because of footage shot by one of the survivors that documented the 
attack. But the news stories coming out after the charges are being 
filed are slanted, with almost none mentioning his white supremacist or 
fascist connections, or his previously stated intent to murder BLM 
activists. They downplay his aggressive threats, his verbal assaults, 
and instead want to make sure we know that when Smith physically 
attacked one of the volunteers, they pushed him back, and then he 
started firing. Facts are not objective, and when you leave out facts 
and include others that skew the information, facts turn into lies.

As someone who has been in movements for decades, as someone who helps 
to organize another monthly vigil in honor of a young Black man murdered 
by Portland police (Justice for Keaton Otis: 
https://www.facebook.com/JusticeForKeatonOtis/ 
<https://www.facebook.com/JusticeForKeatonOtis/?__cft__[0]=AZXPox_Rflc4YxbqNx7wrhmScApjIQ0b_BFMFA-ZXPWSz8wU2xkyrb3USAdxY4gHcI_lBn5YBCVw7CARakKnsNTTtEiUOrVYKqOyNFkMZfXna268Qo_cksZ5LRIAD53JuuTp7zSbhaLBbZRSdwOgGRO2hCNP0Qj5efkDP76Jord5ew&__tn__=kK-R>), 
as someone who studies and teaches the racist history of Oregon and the 
northwest, how we frame all of this matters. It is literally life or 
death. This mass shooting at a Black Lives Matter space, a space where 
people gather to mourn the theft of precious Black lives from our 
communities and demand there be no more, could have happened anywhere. 
This collaboration of individual white supremacist fascists working with 
and being protected by police and government is unfortunately not new 
and not geographic-specific.

And also, the fact that it happened here in Portland, in Oregon, grows 
out of the history of this place’s founding as a racist white utopia, 
out of its brutal exclusion of Black people, out of its theft and 
destruction of indigenous land and indigenous lives. Please don’t ask, 
“How can this happen in a liberal place like Portland?” That is the same 
question people across the country asked me in 2017 when Jeremy 
Christian attacked two teenaged Black young women, and then murdered two 
people and seriously injured the third who tried to stop him. This is 
the culmination of everything this place was built on. And it is the 
culmination of the neo-liberal racist response of the current 
Portland/Oregon government. This is not an aberration, this is business 
as usual. This is the system working exactly as it was intended.

The fact that people gathered peacefully to say, “Give us justice for 
our stolen loved one,” to demand, “Stop murdering Black people,” only to 
be targeted and murdered and maimed, and to have the police applaud and 
the government shift blame to them – that is absolutely unsurprising and 
that doesn’t make it any less devastating or traumatizing.

But the fact that Justice for Patrick Kimmons exists as a weekly space, 
an ongoing demand, for years, led by his courageous and tireless mother 
Letha Winston, that is also born of this place. Black communities in 
Portland, in Oregon, have fought just as tirelessly for justice as Letha 
fights for her son, as she fights for Amir Locke and Daunte Wright and 
everyone else who has been stolen from our communities. The fact that 
JFPK is planning to continue their gatherings even after this horrific 
and painful attack shows the unending commitment to justice that exists 
here. That commitment, the courage of June Knightly and all others who 
found themselves in a hail of bullets and their first and only instinct 
was to protect others – that must be at the heart of how we tell this 
story, and all the work we do from here on out. In the name of all of 
those stolen from us.
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