"After months of coronavirus lockdowns in early 2020, race riots erupted in May in response to the death of George Floyd during an arrest by Minneapolis police. In the name of Black Lives Matter and with the help of antifa, rioters and looters torched buildings, raided stores, and attacked law enforcement in dozens of cities. This resulted in over two dozen deaths."

“Meanwhile, the daily violent antifa protests were becoming more organized and sophisticated. Media pundits inaccurately described what was happening as spontaneous and organic, but what I saw on antifa social media accounts was a deliberate, strategic, and organized plan to grow and entrench the riots. Through advertising on Reddit, Instagram, Snapshot, and Twitter, they were widely successful in getting support not just from antifa fans but also from the wider left.”

“The CrimethInc manual on breaking windows goes on to explain that taxpaying businesses are fair game to target because that ends up hurting police, who rely on public funding. The intellectualizing of their arguments tries to mask the ruthlessness of their worldview. They don’t care whom they harm, what livelihoods they destroy, as long as it furthers their political agenda.”

“At every step of the way, the Portland City Council demonized its police force, accusing them of racism and brutality… They pushed for the Portland Police’s Gun Violence Reduction Team to be dissolved after Floyd’s death, claiming it targeted blacks. The mayor gave his support, and the unit was dismantled. In the following months, shootings and homicides in Portland spiked to the highest level in decades. Compared to the year prior, shootings in July and August 2020 in Portland increased by almost 200 percent.”

“One new phenomenon that developed over the weeks of rioting was antifa activists masquerading as press in order to avoid being arrested by police or to get closer to them to throw projectiles. They simply printed out homemade media badges and wrote ‘press’ on their clothing. On multiple occasions, they were seen participating in violence themselves, such as throwing rocks and fireworks at officers or blinding them with flashlights. Sometimes they actively provoked the police into arresting them so their comrades could record video and send out tweets about police ‘targeting’ media. This was effective, and the ACLU of Oregon sued Portland police and federal agents on behalf of left-wing legal observers and journalists in July. A federal judge granted an emergency injunction exempting anyone who identified as a journalist from dispersal orders.”

“Responding police cruisers had their tires slashed by rioters who dumped nail-filled pool noodles on the street… the night before, rioters tried to break into the Portland Police East Precinct. Two elderly women who lived nearby tried to stop the mob from setting fire to the building. As one of them used an extinguisher to put out a fire, she was screamed at and harassed. The mob then hurled paint at them. One woman had it thrown in her face and eyes.”

“Between May and October 2020, there were nearly a thousand protest- and riot-related cases in Portland referred to the district attorney’s office… Of the 978 arrests and citations, over 90 percent were rejected for prosecution. The main reason given? Out of the ‘interest of justice’—whatever that means. Despite accusations of systemic racism and misogyny in the Portland Police Bureau, the majority of those arrested have been white and male .”