Statement Regarding the City of Portland and the Police Bureau's February 21 Listening Session

Published on Feb 22, 2019

The recent uproar in the media and activist community regarding the Portland Police Bureau’s communications with Joey Gibson did not take us by surprise, but only served to prove what has been known to many for some time. The City of Portland has attacked and injured anti-fascist activists, and done so at the behest of and in collusion with far-right groups.

An Incomplete Timeline of the City of Portland’s Collusion with Far-Right Violence

At this very listening session, Outlaw was quoted as saying, “I want to be able to show that we’re about what we say.” Any person who has stepped up to defend their city against white supremacists over the last two years has seen what the city is about, and has heard what its leaders have said. They are about injuring anti-fascists, excusing police and far-right violence, and putting at-risk populations in harm’s way.

Listed above are only a select number of the instances in which the city collaborated and supported Patriot Prayer and other far-right groups in Portland. Any statements released by the city claiming to condemn white supremacy are empty gestures and performance, just like this listening session. The city cannot blame this on the police, and the police cannot blame this on the city, and neither can blame this on the far-right. The entities are becoming one and the same. The city employs bigots such as Quincy Franklin and Gregrory Isaacson, and protects them with the police.

Quincy Franklin, currently employed by the Water Bureau, came to threaten LGBT community members at Portland Pride, telling them they deserved to be killed. He has said that Muslims should be murdered, and some women deserve to be raped. At Portland Pride in 2017, Joey Gibson acted as “security” for Franklin and his fellow bigots (including violent white nationalist Allen Pucket) as they attacked people at the trans march. Lt. Jeff Niiya, in his texts to Gibson, hoped that more of his events would go down like Pride.

There are simply too many interactions, too many communications, too many incidents of collusion to point the finger at any one action by the city, the police, or the far-right. The only way to fully understand the connection between these different entities and the damage they are doing to this city, is to have lived through the fight against this creeping threat. To have stood on the front lines against the police and white supremacists, to see our comrades’ blood spilt, and to hear the insults, threats, and blame levied at us from the city, the police, and the fascists: this is to know the nature of the fight we are fighting.

To be anti-fascist is to nevertheless know that the only thing that will work to defend our community and loved ones is to tell all of these forces and more, that we will not relent, we will not give in, and we will not rest until our community is safe from your oppression, hate, and violence.

RCA has not, does not, and will not communicate with the Portland Police Bureau in any venue or form, and we encourage any other activist group who is serious about fighting fascism to do the same. We will not take part in any performances meant to distract attention away from the harm the city has caused by supporting the far-right and attacking anti-fascists.

Patriot Prayer has said Portland’s “streets will be cleansed” of liberals and leftists, members of the LGBT, Muslim, and immigrant communities, and any activist who stands up to this violent onslaught. Patriot Prayer has sold T-shirts with a graphic threatening to murder Rose City Antifa members. Followers of Patriot Prayer have, in fact, murdered four people in the Pacific Northwest thus far. The city, via their assistance of Patriot Prayer, and with their batons and explosive grenades, have shown that they are in support of this extra-judicial murder. Patriot Prayer has expressed open support of the violent dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, whose police forces murdered thousands upon thousands of Chilean citizens. The city, through action and inaction, have expressed the role that they are willing to play to Joey Gibson’s own demagoguery.

The people, by showing up again to make clear to Gibson and the city that they are not intimidated by these threats, will be the only measure capable of preventing such a fate from finding us in our current chapter of history.