Multnomah County (Portland), Ore., is a place where justice goes to die if you’re a person perceived to be on the right side of the political aisle. We saw this one-sidedness in the conviction of Mike Strickland in 2016, after he pulled his legally concealed Glock pistol to warn off a group of Antifa protesters who had already roughed him up at a BLM street protest. Strickland was the one convicted of a crime. We also saw it several times following an attack on independent journalist Andy Ngo, when the justice system turned a deaf ear as he demanded prosecution of his Antifa attackers and tormentors.
After seeing hundreds go free for rioting, assaulting, attacking cops, vandalism, and looting in Portland for years, and with Oregon Republicans and conservatives demanding fair justice, has Portland’s Leftist system of Just-Us begun to swing back to the middle?
Could that be? It’s hard to believe.
But there was reason to hope on Tuesday afternoon when, outside the presence of the jury, a Portland judge acquitted two anti-Antifa activists of riot charges. The men, Joey Gibson and Russell Schultz, who belong to a local organization called Patriot Prayer, were acquitted by Judge Benjamin Souede because they did not intentionally try to cause a riot or do anything that could have been remotely depicted as such.
The judge determined there was no evidence that the defendants participated in a riot when they walked to the now defunct Antifa hang-out Cider Riot! (actual name) on the anarchist high holy day, May Day, in 2019 and taunted them. Antifa members poured out of the cider joint to go after the men, and of course, this being Antifa, there was attempted scratching, clawing, spitting (battery), threats, and copious use of bear spray. No one in Antifa was charged with anything, but several people, including Patriot Prayer’s leader Joey Gibson, were charged with crimes.
(See video of the event below.)
While it may have killed him to do it, Judge Souede granted the motions for judgment of acquittal.
As he explained how the facts and evidence didn’t match the Oregon Revised Statute standard for bringing a charge of riot, Souede paused and said, “I am convinced that no reasonable juror would think [this] is an imminent breach of the peace and runs the risk of being convicted of riot.”
In his discussion of Russell Schultz’s charge, the judge wondered why the case was brought at all. “I do not find this to be a close question,” Souede said. “I, I, I am somewhat bewildered that the state has driven this case to this point. Despite having all of the evidence, in this case, all of the video in its possession for years.”
And then the judge got to the heart of the problem with what passes for Portland justice, er, Just Us: the woke, George Soros bought-and-paid-for district attorney, Mike Schmidt, who never met an Antifa rioter he didn’t love.
“That’s not a fling at the individual prosecutors who I know to be men of enormous integrity and who are diligent and fair lawyers practicing in this courthouse,” the judge said, “but as an institution, the district attorney’s office’s decision to push this case to trial is surprising, given the state of the evidence. Motion for acquittal is granted.”
Anyone who’s watched Portland justice, as I have for years (which you know if you read my columns at PJ Media) knows this could be a crack in the Blue Wall of Just Us in Portland. Maybe. One of Gibson’s attorneys, civil rights attorney James Buchal, told me, “It’s a start.”
Patriot Prayer has become the bête noire of Portland’s favored Antifa anarchists by hosting free speech and pro-American marches and rallies that are depicted as “fascistic” by Antifa. Part of the group’s point is to call attention to the fact that Antifa attempts to counter free speech with Leftist violence in the name of “punching Nazis.” But, as you’ve probably figured out by now, everything with which Antifa disagrees is dismissed as being Nazi-like. Call it what it is: a rioter’s veto.
Buchal says that Gibson was exercising his free speech rights to be where he wanted to be on that day in 2019. Indeed, he told the judge, by videoing the entire encounter that day, Gibson was “showing what the root of the disorder in downtown Portland [is]. As applied to these circumstances, are we unreasonably chilling freedom of speech?” Further, Buchal said, if you take Antifa out of the equation, there was no chance of violence.
“If you say, when we have a group of violent criminals you cannot speak and do conduct—not threatening them in any way—and they freak out and do all these things, that that is the type of the breach of the peace that we’re talking about, then that’s vaguely akin to the heckler’s veto,” Buchal argued. “It’s a really bad thing first amendment-wise, it’s a really bad thing public policy-wise, because you essentially empower these groups to grow stronger and stronger and engage in more violence and more criminality,” he told the court.
And that’s exactly what Portland officials have been doing; they’ve coddled their pet protesters for years.
Before Portland’s local Antifa crowd was inspired by their German forebears, they were the anarchist group in Portland. And before that, their kindred were environmental and animal protesters; they were the 99%, Occupy campers, Earth First! tree-spiking terrorists, Vail ski resort arsonists, SUV torchers, and spotted owl fabulists. All were Oregon nutballs.
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During the raucous shouting match between Antifa and Gibson’s group, an Antifa woman took down her mask and spit on Gibson. He responded by wiping off his arm on the shirt of one of her comrades.
Prosecutors argued that wiping was an act of incitement of riot; there was no mention of the assault and battery on Gibson. And so went Portland Just-Us until Tuesday.
Related: Family of Man Gunned Down by Antifa Assassin During ‘Summer of Love’ Sues Portland for Millions
Buchal said to Judge Souede, “so, there was no conduct by [Gibson] which was personally violent and tumultuous unless [you] take into account that Antifa is dangerous and violent, and so that’s what this is about. It’s about separating out, you know, for purposes of the first amendment, excluding the tendencies of Antifa. And the tendencies of Antifa are gone from the case. Then, when you look at Mr. Gibson’s conduct, the conduct of wiping spit, not violent and tumultuous conduct.”
And the judge agreed, even though the prosecutors wanted it both ways.
Buchal argued in federal court that this case was a free speech case, but the court told him to sort out the local criminal case first.
Antifa is not a benign group of activists. This organized group has committed millions of dollars in damage in Portland alone. They also have a body count. The group is responsible for the assassination of one of Gibson’s Patriot Prayer friends, Aaron “Jay” Danielson, during Portland’s “summer of love.”
Perhaps at least one judge has finally begun to see these terrorists for who they are.
