Rumor has it antifa will return to downtown Portland tonight (Wednesday) to assail Portland Police at the Justice Center. It’s been over a week since they’ve all but abandoned downtown–not entirely, keeping a continuous vigil. They had seemed to wring all they could out of their campaign to portray federal agents as occupying jackboots. The federals’ restraint meant quickly diminishing returns, and an agreement between Trump and the city to pull back allowed antifa to declare victory and get some rest, while casting the relative quiet as evidence Trump’s troops started the whole thing.
Yet all the while they’ve still mustered hundreds nightly to harass the police union building and now the Multnomah Sheriff station–presumably because they’ve dared help out Portland Police along with the State Troopers–and even prompted Ted Wheeler to complain in harsh terms when they went too far even for him.
If they are returning to downtown it might be by design or inspiration following a remarkable lawfare salvo on their behalf by freshly minted Soros-funded District Attorney Mike Schmidt. He speaks entirely in the language of progressive theory and his first call of congratulation on election last May came from San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin.
First he announced that in light of the understandable rage of protesters public order is no longer policy:
We will presumptively decline to charge cases where the most serious offenses are city ordinance violations and crimes that do not involve deliberate property damage, theft, or the use or threat of force against another person. Crimes in this category include:
● Interference with a police officer, ORS 162.247
● Disorderly conduct, ORS 166.025 ● Criminal trespass, ORS 164.245 and 164.255
● Escape III, ORS 162.145 ● Harassment, when classified as a Class B misdemeanor, ORS 166.065
● Riot, ORS 166.015 – Unless accompanied by a charge outside of this
Police were not consulted. Smith crafted the policy with input from select “community leaders”. Thus teed-up, the boy DA then crushed what was left of police morale by knocking hundreds of arrests back in their faces:
Of the 550 protest cases that have been referred to the district attorney’s office between May 29 and Aug. 10, 417 were misdemeanors, and 133 were felonies. The most common misdemeanor charge was interfering with a peace officer (313 cases), and the most common felony charge was riot (44 cases).
After reviewing the 550 cases, the DA’s office now plans to prosecute 47, all of which are felony cases. An additional 86 felony cases are still pending.
“The district attorney’s office will presumptively decline to pursue criminal charges which result solely from the participation in a protest or mass demonstration,” Schmidt said.
Crimes that will not be prosecuted include: interfering with a peace officer, disorderly conduct in the second degree, criminal trespass in the first or second degree, escape in the third degree, and harassment and riot when it isn’t accompanied by a charge separate from this list.
Schmidt has been issuing his proclamations standing before the mural “There Are No Impossible Dreams”, one of five done by a local Artist of Color in collaboration with youth suspects awaiting trial.
Apparently displayed at the courthouse where citizens await jury duty, it features a court jester driving a chariot filled with Diverse Americans through a circus landscape.
We’re in for a ride I suppose.
untethered 