A policeman in Portland at the scene where an antifa activist was killed by police during his arrest on September 3, 2020. -
Ted Warren / AP / SIPA
Their meeting was fatal to them.
In Portland, anti-racist protests have been marked in recent weeks by violent clashes between far-right groups who have come to challenge supporters of the Black Lives Matters movement, themselves supported by far-left activists.
Thursday evening, an antifa activist wanted for five days for killing a member of the Patriot Prayer group last Saturday was shot dead by police during his arrest.
A few hours earlier, Donald Trump had demanded that "this killer" be arrested.
Why aren't the Portland Police ARRESTING the cold blooded killer of Aaron “Jay” Danielson.
Do your job, and do it fast.
Everybody knows who this thug is.
No wonder Portland is going to hell!
@TheJusticeDept @FBI
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2020
In an interview with Vice News published earlier Thursday, Michael Reinoehl, 48, described himself as a "100% antifa."
He explained that he had served in the army and provided "security" for the demonstrators of the Black Lives Matter movement in the face of the threat of small groups and armed militias of the extreme right which have organized themselves in recent weeks, mainly in Kenosha and Portland.
Reinoehl seemed to admit having killed Aaron Danielson, 39, a member of a local far-right group, the Patriot Prayer, and implied that he had acted in self-defense, saying: “I had no choice.
Well, yes, I could have stood by and watched them kill one of my colored friends.
"
The course of events not clarified by the videos
Reinoehl assures us that one of the far right activists had a knife.
Several members of the Patriot Prayer, claimed that they only had paint guns and cans of irritant spray.
Several videos of the drama were posted on social networks.
But a sequence-by-sequence analysis of the
Washington Post
cannot determine with certainty the course of the tragedy.
Activists from the far-right group Patriot Prayer equipped with paint guns during a protest in Portland on August 22, 2020. - Alex Milan Tracy / Sipa USA / SIPA
The affair quickly took a political turn.
"I will not allow Patriot Prayer and armed white supremacists to spill blood on our streets," said Democratic Governor of Oregon Kate Brown, citing the 17-year-old pro-Trump activist accused of having killed two people in Kenosha.
The American president, on the other hand, paid homage to Aaron Danielson, assuring that it was "a pious man" who had "paint to defend himself".
World
United States: One dead in Portland during an anti-racist demonstration
World
Demonstrations, urban violence, armed militias… An explosive cocktail two months before the presidential election
Black Lives Matter
Portland