GOODWIN: Now that you mention it ...
Radical eyed in Ore. killing of right-winger
Columnist Michael Goodwin says Joe Biden was unconvincing in his efforts yesterday to paint President Trump as the cause of violence in Portland and Kenosha, Wis.
A former military man who calls himself “100% ANTIFA” was being eyed on Monday in the fatal shooting of a right-wing demonstrator in Portland, Ore., amid a weekend of contentious demonstrations there.
Michael Forest Reinoehl, 48, is under investigation in the Saturday-night slay- ing of Aaron “Jay” Danielson, The Oregonian reported, citing police sources.
The killing capped a day of violence between Black
Lives Matter protesters and backers of President Trump — like the Patriot Prayer group of which Daniel- son was a “supporter,” according to its founder.
Reinoehl — who has not been charged, arrested or formally named as a suspect in connection with the shooting — has for months detailed his fervent allegiance to the protests on social media.
“I am 100% ANTIFA all the way! I am willing to fight for my brothers and sisters!” he wrote in one June post on Instagram. “We do not want violence but we will not run from it either!”
Antifa, short for “antifascist,” is a loose left-wing movement that has been prominent at protests from coast to coast for years and which Trump has sought to designate as a domestic terror organization.
Reinoehl’s estranged sister told The Oregonian that she was roused early Sunday by a cryptic phone call from someone who threatened that her “whole family was in danger unless we turned him over.”
After reporting the threat to local authorities, she searched online and saw video screenshots of a man fleeing the shooting who bore the same distinctive neck tattoo of a “Black Power” fist as her brother.
“We reached out to police and confirmed that we recognized Michael in the screenshots,” the sister told The Oregonian on condition that her name be withheld due to the threat she received.
She noted to the newspaper that Reinoehl has been estranged from the family for at least three years.
“On the one hand, this whole thing surprises the daylights out of us, because we always thought he is a lot of bark, not a lot of bite,” she said. “But he’s also been very impulsive and irrational.”
Reinoehl — who during a Bloomberg News interview earlier in the protests identified himself as a professional snowboarder — was cited at a July 5 demonstration for allegedly possessing a loaded gun in a public place, resisting arrest and interfering with police, according to court records.
He was given a court date, but before he could show up, the charges were dropped on July 30, according to The Oregonian, which said court papers don’t indicate why the case stalled.
A spokesman for the local district attorney’s office told the paper that the July case remains under investigation.
A publicly listed phone number for Reinoehl was out of service on Monday, and a message went unanswered on Instagram, where in June he likened the ongoing protests to “war.”
“It will be a war and like all wars there will be casualties,” he wrote. “I was in the army and I hated it. I did not feel like fighting for them would ever be a good cause.
“Today’s protesters and antifa
are my brothers in arms.”
Meanwhile, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced late Sunday a six-point plan to tamp down violence in Portland, where protests have raged nightly since the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.
Brown vowed to send extra cops from around the state into Portland, ensure there is jail space to house those accused of violent acts and seek extra help from the feds in investigating protest-related crimes.
“We all must come together — elected officials, community leaders, all of us — to stop the cycle of violence,” Brown said.
“But this is only the first step. Real change will come from the hard work to achieve racial justice. And it starts with all of us listening to each other and working together.”