COPS KILL SUSPECT IN PORTLAND SHOOTING
Michael Reinoehl, 48, was killed as a federal task force attempted to apprehend him in Lacey, Washington
An Antifa gunman who admitted shooting dead a supporter of the rightwing group Patriot Prayer in Portland, Oregon has been killed by US Marshals in a shoot-out as officers tried to arrest him, reports the Daily Mail.
Michael Reinoehl, 48, was being investigated for the killing of Aaron Danielson, a supporter of President Donald Trump during last weekend's tension in the city, the BBC reported.
Federal agents from the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service had located Reinoehl on Thursday after a warrant was issued for his arrest. During the encounter, Reinoehl was shot by at least one law enforcement officer who was working on the federal task force, the official said, Daily Mail reported.
Thurston County Sheriff's Lieutenant Ray Brady said it was not clear why the suspect was in Lacey and he did not believe Reinoehl lived at the address.
Lieutenant Brady said the police were conducting surveillance when the suspect left the apartment and got into a vehicle in the road.
“There was a confrontation between the officers that were on scene and the subject.”
"The information we have at this time is that the subject was armed. There were shots that were fired into the vehicle and the subject fled from the vehicle, at which time there was additional shots that were fired," the BBC quoted Lieutenant Brady as saying.
He said four officers fired their weapons.
According to the BBC report, Reinoehl was a regular participant in Portland's anti-racism demonstrations and was part of the protesters' security team that aimed to protect demonstrators from potential agitators.
Several hundred protesters gathered in Portland following the shooting on
Thursday and one sign in the street outside a police station.
Reinoehl's killing came amid fights between the Trump supporters and Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland.
According to Daily Mail, witnesses Chad Smith and Chase Cutler, who said they were just 150ft away from the gunman, told the Olympian they saw a man open fire and heard 40 or 50 shots from what they believe was a semi-automatic rifle before officers returned fire and shot him dead.
But authorities are yet to confirm whether Reinoehl fired the weapon.
Witnesses say that Reinoehl exited an SUV after he was blocked from fleeing, and opened fire on police with a semi-automatic rifle.
Police would not immediately confirm whether Reinoehl had fired his weapon, but said that no officers were injured in the confrontation.
Reinoehl's death came on same day that he appeared to confess to shooting Danielson in an video interview, claiming that he acted in self-defense.
'I had no choice. I mean, I, I had a choice. I could have sat there and watched them kill a friend of mine of color. But I wasn't going to do that,' Michael Reinoehl, 48, said in a clip of a video interview published by Vice News on Thursday, according to a report by Daily Mail.