"The shooting victims were part of a community of antifascist volunteers that formed spontaneously in 2020 to
keep the racial justice protesters
who filled Portland’s streets day after day safe
by redirecting traffic away from marchers, a role known as “corking”,
providing them with emergency medical aid and using principles of de-escalation
to talk down aggrieved bystanders.
As the Guardian reported last year, public records obtained by Forensic Architecture revealed that
police officers responding to the mass shooting had been told
that it was an “anti-police protest”.
Officers then treated the gravely wounded survivors of the attack
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/01/portland-police-chief-apologizes
more like suspects than victims
of a mass shooting.
***
"survivors of the attack also fault the mayor at the time,
Ted Wheeler, for public comments he made before the shooting,
in which he urged Portland residents to take their city back
from the racial justice demonstrators, and suggested it was time to
“make it hurt them a little bit”.
***
Portland police chief apologizes to mass shooting victims falsely said to be armed
Investigation first published by the Guardian proved volunteers at 2022 Black Lives Matter protest were unarmed
"Following the shooting, PPB issued a news release calling
the perpetrator of this violent act a
homeowner, when in fact he was not,” Day said.
“Additionally, the victims were mischaracterized as
armed protesters when, in fact, they were unarmed traffic-safety volunteers”.
Day acknowledged that,
even after police detectives and prosecutors had viewed video of the assault,
recorded on the helmet-camera of one victim, and used it in court against
the attacker, 43-year-old Ben Smith,
the false statement about a “confrontation” .
with “armed protesters”
remained uncorrected on the police website"
'One gunshot victim, June Knightly, 60, died that night; a second, who used the nickname Deg, was left quadriplegic.
In July 2024, Deg, 32, exercised her right to die
by choosing to stop using the ventilator she needed to breath.'
____
"FBI confirmed, for the first time Thursday, agents contacted Benjamin Smith in 2021 prior to a February shooting that left one dead and others injured. Now, a family member says they tried to report a death threat Smith made to police."
'On Feb. 19, Benjamin Smith, 43, allegedly came out of his apartment and started yelling
misogynist slurs at a small group of people
who were holding back traffic for a racial justice march. According to witnesses, attempts to de-escalate failed and Smith drew a handgun, firing at the group"
'Phone records confirm he made a three-minute call to Portland’s non-emergency line on May 10, 2021,
nine months before the Normandale shooting.
R.J. Smith said he wasn’t surprised by the shooting because his cousin had recently threatened his life.
“His usual expectation was when he calls you an idiot you back down and when I didn’t that’s when he completely went off,” R.J. Smith told OPB.
“The specific death threat was, he said I was a fascist and that people like him were going to put a fascist like me up against a wall one of these days.
He’s like ‘I got the time for a road trip and you’ve got one incoming.’”
R.J. Smith said he believed his cousin meant that
he wanted to execute people he disagreed with."
"For years, people reported the alleged shooter’s violent behavior and racist outbursts to the FBI, which contacted him in 2021. "
"Anti-fascist researchers discovered Smith was well known in the furry community for praising Nazis, the Proud Boys, and Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old from Illinois who traveled to Kenosha, Wisconsin, and fatally shot two protesters "
