Source: The Federalist
Police were powerless in Portland last week as Antifa anarchists caused another $500,000 worth of damage in their latest rampage.
The estimate, cited as a minimum by the Portland Police Bureau, came as a consequence of police powers being stripped before an annual demonstration was held in the name of Antifa comrade Sean Kealiher, who was killed by an SUV outside an anarchist bar in 2019.
“I’m concerned about the brazen criminal acts that took place downtown last night,” Police Chief Chuck Lovell said in a Wednesday statement. “I want to assure those who were victimized that investigations are underway, and we will do whatever we can to identify and arrest those who were responsible.”
No arrests have yet been made after about 100 activists attacked 35 locations including banks, retail stores, coffee shops, and government buildings.
Police were blocked from deploying crowd control measures such as pepper spray and rubber bullets due to legislation passed earlier this year.
“The reason that we did not intervene goes back to what we talked about last month with House Bill 2928 and the restrictions placed on us in a crowd control environment,” Portland Police Lt. Jake Jensen told residents on Thursday at a neighborhood meeting, as reported by KOIN.
While the law allows an exception during a riot, the damage was done before police managed to make the required formal declaration.
The damage that ensued was premeditated by Kealiher’s mother, a prison abolitionist who organized the night of rage out of protest over her son’s death two years ago. Kealiher was a young Antifa activist-turned-martyr who promoted domestic terrorism cloaked in so-called “social justice.”
“This is not a peaceful event,” Laura Kealiher wrote on Twitter ahead of the demonstrations, revealed in screenshots captured by The Post Millennial’s Andy Ngô. “Peace police will be kicked out period.”
No arrests were made in Kealiher’s case, the exact circumstances of which remain unknown. According to The Intercept, an argument erupted between Kealiher and a group of his friends and another group outside the Cider Riot, a since-closed bar popular among Antifa activists. The opposing group eventually piled into an SUV, and after briefly turning away returned to hit Kealiher and ram the building. One of Kealiher’s friends pulled out a licensed handgun and started blasting the car as the driver started to reverse, fleeing the scene on foot with the rest of the passengers.
The police later recovered the vehicle but made no charges. Kealiher was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead after his friends chose not to call the authorities.
Portland’s disarming of police is by no means unique at a time of surging crime. Major cities from Minneapolis to Seattle opted to defund police, which led to massive spikes in emergency calls, causing jurisdictions now to reconsider the left-wing “solution” to community law enforcement.
Lawmakers in Oregon, however, have governed with such a cudgel against opposing values across the rest of the state’s conservative population that it’s ignited a movement among its rural counties to demand annexation to join Idaho.
