<div dir="ltr">
<div id="gmail-toolbar" class="gmail-toolbar-container">
</div><div class="gmail-container" dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail-header gmail-reader-header gmail-reader-show-element">
<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://theintercept.com/2022/02/23/portland-protest-shooting/">theintercept.com</a>
<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Survivors of a Deadly Attack on a Portland Protest Were Victimized Twice: First by the Gunman, Then by the Police</h1>
<div class="gmail-PostByline-names-with-images"><a class="gmail-PostByline-image-link" rel="author" href="https://theintercept.com/staff/robertmackey/"><span class="gmail-PostByline-name"><span>Robert Mackey</span></span></a><span class="gmail-PostByline-name"><span></span></span><span class="gmail-PostByline-date"><span> - February 23 2022, </span></span>
</div></div>
<hr>
<div class="gmail-content">
<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><div><p><u>Prosecutors in Portland</u>, Oregon, <a href="https://www.mcda.us/index.php/news/da-mike-schmidt-announces-charges-and-arrest-warrant-for-weekend-shooting">charged</a>
a right-wing gunman with murder on Tuesday, three days after he opened
fire on a group of unarmed women who were directing traffic along the
route of a protest march against police violence.</p>
<p>The gunman, Benjamin Smith, 43, killed a 60-year-old woman and
wounded three other women and one man before a volunteer security guard
for the protest ended the rampage by shooting the attacker in the hip.</p>
<p>When Portland police officers arrived at the scene of the rampage,
however, they were skeptical of the testimony from the victims and other
witnesses that the attack had been unprovoked, and they <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2022/02/portland-police-confirm-identity-of-alleged-gunman-in-normandale-park-shooting.html">arrested the volunteer security guard</a> after he reportedly described his role and surrendered his semi-automatic pistol.</p>
<p>The next day the Portland Police Bureau outraged <a href="https://twitter.com/Mor_Rioghain13/status/1495866907467329536">survivors of the attack</a> and their allies in the racial justice community by issuing <a href="https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/news/read.cfm?id=402187&ec=2&ch=twitter">a press release</a> that
wrongly stated that the incident had “started with a confrontation
between an armed homeowner and armed protesters.” The police also
claimed that a lack of cooperation from protesters who witnessed or
recorded the shootings meant that “investigators are trying to put this
puzzle together without having all the pieces.”</p></div><div><p>Critics of the police like the civil rights advocate Zakir Khan <a href="https://twitter.com/ZakirSpeaks/status/1495558759112122370">suggested</a> that the use of the term “homeowner,” which was <a href="https://twitter.com/JuniperLSimonis/status/1496305565672390664">uncritically echoed</a>
in media reports, was intended to mislead the public into assuming that
the gunman had merely been defending himself or his property, which
evidence subsequently uncovered by reporters showed to be untrue. Smith,
in fact, rented an apartment near the route of the planned protest
march, and his roommate <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2022/02/portland-man-under-suspicion-in-mass-shooting-fixated-on-citys-protests-homeless-problem-neighbors-and-family-say.html">told The Oregonian</a>
that he was obsessed with guns and harbored a deep hatred for the Black
Lives Matter movement and antifascists in the city. “He talked about
wanting to go shoot commies and antifa all the friggin’ time,” Smith’s
roommate, Kristine Christenson, <a href="https://www.opb.org/article/2022/02/21/alleged-killer-in-normandale-park-protest-shooting-identified-as-benjamin-smith/">told Oregon Public Radio</a>.</p>
<p>The first victim to make her account public, Dajah Beck, insisted
that Smith had indeed launched an unprovoked attack on four unarmed
women. Beck, who was shot twice, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/20/us/portland-shooting-protest.html">told The New York Times</a>
that Smith approached the women as they were working to reroute traffic
ahead of the march, started screaming that they were “violent
terrorists,” used a misogynistic vulgarity, and threatened to shoot
them. When the women asked him to leave, he shot them at point-blank
range.</p>
<p>“We were unarmed traffic safety volunteers,” Beck <a href="https://twitter.com/dontgetkettled/status/1495798062203416581">wrote on Twitter</a>
on Monday. “Four women trying to de-escalate & he unloaded a 45
into us because he didn’t like being asked to leave and stop calling us
terrorist c*nts. We were in high vis and dresses. He murdered a disabled
woman.”</p>
<p>Beck added that video evidence would substantiate her account, since
she had recorded the whole encounter on a GoPro attached to her
motorcycle helmet, and the footage had been taken by the police. “I got
the whole thing,” Beck <a href="https://twitter.com/dontgetkettled/status/1495798633458982918">wrote</a>. “Do not believe PPB press releases or the statements of mass murderers.”</p></div><div><p>It is not clear if Portland’s police chief, Chuck Lovell, had seen Beck’s video before he <a href="https://youtu.be/2NXlAL5WbpQ?t=602">told reporters</a>
at a news conference on Tuesday that the incident “was a confrontation
between an armed resident of the area and armed protesters,” but a
prosecutor in the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office told a
court later in the day that the video clearly documents an unprovoked
rampage.</p>
<p>The video shows that Smith approached the women and confronted them,
“yelling at them and demanding they leave the area,” prosecutors wrote.
The women can be heard on the recording telling Smith “to leave them
alone and return home.” Smith responds “by demanding they ‘make’ him
leave and he approaches a participant aggressively, who pushes him
back,” according to the prosecutors. Smith “continues to yell at
participants and a few moments later … draws a handgun and fires at
multiple people, striking five.”</p>
<p>Prosecutors filed <a href="https://webportal.courts.oregon.gov/portal/Home/WorkspaceMode?p=0#OtherEvents">nine criminal charges</a> against Smith, including one count of murder and four of attempted murder.</p>
<p>The video might also have offered proof that the shooting of the
gunman was, in fact, an act of self-defense, since prosecutors released
the volunteer security guard after the footage was obtained and declined
to charge him with a crime. According to Oregon Public Radio, court
records show the man, whose identity has been revealed by far-right
figures online, <a href="https://www.opb.org/article/2022/02/22/suspected-portland-normandale-park-shooter-charged-with-murder/">is licensed to carry a firearm</a>. The man did not respond to an interview request from The Intercept.</p>
<p>The woman Smith killed at the scene with a shot to the head was
identified by her family and friends as June Knightly, a cancer survivor
who walked with a cane and went by the nickname T-Rex. According to
Beck, Knightly, <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2022/02/june-knightly-who-died-in-normandale-park-shooting-relished-role-of-protecting-demonstrators.html">a veteran LGBTQ activist</a> who had become a fixture at Portland’s racial justice protests, stepped in between Smith and the other women to shield them.</p></div><div><blockquote><p dir="ltr" lang="en">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. <br>Say her name today. <a href="https://t.co/V896QjtfAD">pic.twitter.com/V896QjtfAD</a></p>— SSDGK ? (@dontgetkettled) <a href="https://twitter.com/dontgetkettled/status/1496230681415979011?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 22, 2022</a></blockquote></div><div><p>Smith,
who received emergency medical care from protest medics, was
hospitalized but is expected to survive. Two of his victims were treated
for gunshot wounds at the same hospital and released; two other victims
remain in critical condition. One of the injured women was shot in the
cervical spine and is currently paralyzed from the neck down,
prosecutors revealed on Tuesday.</p>
<p>“I will never let the headline be ‘armed protestor confronts
homeowner,’ which is the lie that was being peddled,” Beck wrote late
Tuesday night on Twitter. “The rally was over a block away from us. It
wasn’t even visible from our location. We were alone. We were a small
group of women, alone. He saw us alone and he came for us. He didn’t go
to the crowd. He came for us. This wasn’t a protestor altercation.”</p>
<p>“We were alone. We were targeted. She was wearing a dress, I was
wearing a high visibility vest. My currently paralyzed friend is five
feet tall. So tiny. So hopelessly outmatched by his size and violence.
June put herself between our sweet, tiny friend and this monster,” Beck
added.</p>
<p>She also tried to clear up mistaken reports that the women who were shot were in a crowd of protesters. In fact, <a href="https://twitter.com/NorthEnd161/status/1494891381646508037">the march</a>
— a recurring racial justice protest called Justice for Patrick
Kimmons, named for a Black man fatally shot by the Portland police in
2018 and led by his mother — had not yet reached the edge of Normandale
Park where the women were getting positioned to block traffic. “We were
alone. I never even saw the crowd that night. We were gunned down long
before they reached us,” <a href="https://twitter.com/dontgetkettled/status/1496390255364407298'">Beck wrote</a>.
“The person who returned fire and saved our lives came to us because I
was frantically calling for help as the situation escalated. He was not
with us when it started. The fact that he made it there as fast as he
did is a miracle.”</p>
<p>Antifascist researchers, who identified Smith before the police did, <a href="https://twitter.com/Johnnthelefty/status/1495926618061213710">revealed</a>
that the gunman has an online history of violent rhetoric and a
reputation for extremism among members of the furry community. (Furries
are people who strongly identify with anthropomorphic animals and create
fursonas, or identities of themselves as those anthropomorphic
animals.)</p></div><div><blockquote><p dir="ltr" lang="en">Portland
mass shooter Ben Smith’s threats of violence and praise of Kyle
Rittenhouse are well-known in the furry community. This is an old thread
about it. <a href="https://t.co/dmbc34y2ee">https://t.co/dmbc34y2ee</a></p>— kmw (@kmwdotcom) <a href="https://twitter.com/kmwdotcom/status/1495929025126346752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 22, 2022</a></blockquote></div><div><p>As the antifascist researcher <a href="https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1495954685622210560">Chad Loder reported</a>,
a message on Smith’s Telegram account explicitly called for mass
shootings by right-wing groups. “If the Proud Boys shot up somebodies
car they probably deserved it,” a message attributed to Smith read.
“Thus far they sadly haven’t shot up someones car, because good christ
that needs to happen.”</p>
<p>Although the police reportedly interviewed Smith’s roommate on the
night of the shooting, it was not until two days later, after his
roommate told reporters that he had stockpiled weapons, that the police
executed a search warrant and removed <a href="https://twitter.com/Johnnthelefty/status/1496016433104539650">a large number of guns</a> from his apartment.</p>
<p>Smith’s YouTube account show that he follows Andy Ngo, the right-wing
activist from Portland whose career as a pundit is based on <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/12/01/dayton-mass-shooting-antifa-waukesha/">inaccurate reporting</a>
and wild exaggerations about antifascism. Ngo has repeatedly claimed
that the Justice for Patrick Kimmons protesters are violent extremists,
based solely on the fact that the marches against police violence are
routinely <a href="https://youtu.be/-s784bHdwFc">guarded by armed volunteers</a> — as seen even in a music video dedicated to the cause.</p></div><div><p>Five
days before Smith shot the women clearing an intersection for the JFPK
marchers, Ngo railed against the group on YouTube and Twitter, posting
two video clips of the group’s armed security team <a href="https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1493367428667092995">preparing to guard a protest</a> this month and engaged in a pair of <a href="https://youtu.be/Edv61e2T3lE">tense confrontations</a> with motorists that <a href="https://youtu.be/ER5xYn1wRWI">spilled over into violence</a>
during one march in early 2021. Ngo also drew attention to information
in one video that his followers could use to identify someone working
with the JFPK security team.</p>
<p>(In September 2020, Andy Ngo <a href="https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1311377480817635328">tweeted</a>
a booking photograph of one of the women Smith shot, Dajah Beck. At the
time, Ngo gloated over Beck’s arrest at what he called a “violent
Portland BLM-antifa protest.” The following year, when Beck was <a href="https://www.portland.gov/council/documents/ordinance/passed/190619">awarded $25,000 by the city</a>
to settle a claim “for injuries suffered during an encounter with
Portland Police officers” that night, Ngo made no mention of that
development.)</p>
</div><div><p>While the presence of armed racial justice protesters at left-wing marches <a href="https://youtu.be/4yYPB8kBYsw">distresses advocates for gun control</a>, and the<a href="https://acleddata.com/2021/08/23/acled-everytown-release-first-of-its-kind-report-revealing-more-than-500-armed-demonstrations-occurred-in-the-past-18-months-alone/"> vast majority of armed demonstrations</a> are
by right-wing groups, it is not hard to understand the logic of
anti-police protesters, who feel that the police will not protect them,
choosing to provide their own security.</p>
<p>“Let’s make one thing clear: The person who opened fire carried out
an act of mass violence. The protester who shot this person ended the
violence,” Robert Evans, a writer and investigative journalist, <a href="https://twitter.com/IwriteOK/status/1495642070823968774">observed on Twitter</a>
after the shooting rampage aimed at the Justice for Patrick Kimmons
march. “I understand that people find this logic unsettling. Portland
protests have been attacked repeatedly for years with everything from
batons to improvised explosives and firearms. That’s the reality. People
are going to take steps to defend themselves.”</p>
<p>At a<a href="https://twitter.com/JuniperLSimonis/status/1496009047811796993"> vigil for June Knightly</a> in a park close to where she was killed, Patrick Kimmons’s mother, Letha Winston, called for Andy Ngo <a href="https://twitter.com/JuniperLSimonis/status/1495962341825204226">to be banned from Twitter</a> for inciting the attack.</p></div><div><blockquote><div dir="ltr" lang="en"><p>The vigil for T Rex is beautiful</p><p>Fires burn and snacks abound</p><p>Love and sorrow fill the air</p><p>Bodies are needed to protect the grieving and memorial <a href="https://t.co/K2nYkK0nCM">pic.twitter.com/K2nYkK0nCM</a></p></div>— Dr. Juniper L. Simonis (they/them) (@JuniperLSimonis) <a href="https://twitter.com/JuniperLSimonis/status/1496009047811796993?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 22, 2022</a></blockquote></div><p><strong>Correction: February 23, 2022</strong><br>
<em>This article has been updated to correct a reference to the type of
pistol used by a volunteer security guard who ended an attack on a
protest in Portland on Saturday by shooting the attacker. The gun was a
semi-automatic pistol, not an automatic one.</em></p></div></div></div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>