The shooting of a respected volunteer at a racial justice protest in Portland, Oregon, last weekend has roiled the activist community in the city, and raised fresh fears about “vigilante violence” and escalating extremism in America.
Authorities on Tuesday filed murder charges against 43-year-old Benjamin Smith, who police say showed up to a protest against police violence on Saturday night, yelled at demonstrators to leave, and then shot at the group. He killed 60-year-old June Knightly and wounded four others, police say.
Knightly, a longtime activist involved in racial justice protests and LGBTQ+ organizing, was known as a “peacemaker” who strived to keep people safe during protests. The night of her death she had been working as a traffic safety volunteer before the start of a demonstration calling for justice for Amir Locke and Daunte Wright, two Black men killed by police in Minnesota.
Knightly’s friends and local advocates said the violence was predictable in Portland, which has seen far-right gatherings and chaotic and sometimes violent protests in the last year. The region also has a dark history of white supremacy and racist hate crimes despite its liberal reputation. The violence against protesters also comes three months after the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse, who was treated as a hero among extremist Republicans and far-right groups after he killed two men at an anti-racism demonstration in Wisconsin. Advocates warn of a growing threat that extremists – emboldened by Rittenhouse’s court victory, radicalized online, and encouraged by some Republicans – will commit more acts of violence.
‘Radicalized and angry’
Smith “confronted” protesters at Portland’s Normandale Park at about 8pm local time on Saturday, prosecutors say, “yelling at them and demanding they leave the area”. The activists told Smith to leave them alone. Instead, Smith demanded they “‘make’ him leave,” and “aggressively” approached one of them, who pushed Smith back. Moments later, he began shooting, according to court records.
Knightly and four other people were hit. Knightly and three other women who were wounded were not directly part of the march, one surviving victim told the New York Times, but were helping reroute traffic. None of them were armed, she said, adding that the gunman called them “terrorists” and slurs before shooting.
The shooting ended when someone shot Smith, officials said. That individual was initially arrested, but is not facing charges and was not named in the charging documents. One surviving victim was struck in the neck and is paralyzed, another was seriously injured and paralyzed, and two others were treated at a hospital and discharged. Smith was hit in the hip and hospitalized.
Kristine Christenson, Smith’s roommate, said that she and others in their apartment complex were “heartbroken”, but weren’t surprised to learn of the shooting. “[Smith’s] been talking about wanting to do something like this for a while,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, the person who fired back on Smith saved my life.”
Christenson said she had lived with Smith for seven years, but had felt increasingly threatened in recent years. “He made me extremely uncomfortable and unsafe in my own living space.”
“[Smith] got angrier and more and more rightwing over the past few years,” she said in an email, adding that it appeared he had become “radicalized” and was slipping “further and further down this alt right rabbit hole”.
Christenson said she tried to keep her distance, but that she overheard him listening to rightwing content, including from far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. She said Smith wore a “Kyle Rittenhouse true patriot” shirt and often talked angrily about leftwing protesters, Black Lives Matter and “antifa”, unhoused people living on the streets and Covid restrictions.
‘They blamed the victims’
The shooting sent shock waves through a city that has seen frequent protests since the George Floyd uprisings of 2020, and occasional clashes between anti-fascist activists and far-right protesters.
But advocates say the response from law enforcement leaders to the shooting only exacerbated concerns.
The initial statement from the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) said the shooting had started “with a confrontation between an armed homeowner and armed protesters”.
Smith was not a homeowner and had gone to the demonstration, which was down the street from his apartment. But the narrative quickly spread in national media.
Portland police spokesperson Kevin Allen did not say why the original press release referred to a “homeowner”, but he said in an email that an investigation determined that was inaccurate: “The use of the term was never intended to mislead anyone.”
He said there was “tremendous amount of pressure” to release information and that the department strives to “always remember the victims and their loved ones” in communications.
The city later updated its statement to call Smith “an armed area resident”, but to advocates the mistake was part of a pattern of city leaders and law enforcement officials misrepresenting racial justice protesters and failing to address the threats of the far right, advocates said.
PPB critics point to a list of recent scandals: at one 2017 protest in Portland, federal officers allowed a member of a rightwing “patriot” militia-style group to help arrest an anti-fascist activist; in 2019, a lieutenant was caught exchanging friendly text messages with a rightwing leader, and later cleared of wrongdoing; in 2020, the department allegedly deployed teargas against racial justice demonstrators 300 times on 20 different days; in 2021, police leaked a false story claiming that the first Black woman to serve as a Portland city commissioner, who has been critical of the department, was a hit-and-run suspect; and earlier this year, it was revealed that Portland police training documents included a meme that mocked protesters as “dirty hippies” and celebrated using violence against them.
“This is a pattern and practice of Portland police,” said Sandy Chung, executive director of the ACLU of Oregon. “This seems to be an effort by Portland police to frame the story as ‘just a confrontation’, and that somehow the people involved in providing traffic safety for the march were also culpable, when there is no evidence of that.”
“This is blaming victims for the harms committed against them,” said Bobbin Singh, executive director of the Oregon Justice Resource Center, adding that the shooting was “completely predictable and inevitable”. He has since called on Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, to resign and for the leadership of PPB to be dismantled.
Wheeler in particular is facing intense scrutiny over comments he made in 2021 after a year of sustained protests, saying he wanted to “unmask” protesters committing vandalism and arson, and that it was time to “hurt them a little bit”.
“Mayor Wheeler, the top level manager of the Portland police bureau, has not set up the systems and policies and culture where there is accountability,” Chung said, “and it means that our communities are less safe.”
Teressa Raiford, executive director of Don’t Shoot Portland, a social justice group, said the rhetoric against protesters was creating an environment that enabled violence and was meant to discourage people from marching against police brutality.
“It’s always denouncements of vandalism rather than denouncements of violence against people, and that hinders the progress we need to make as a society,” she said of officials’ rhetoric. After the killing, her group canceled an art gallery show and paused outreach and mutual aid efforts, such as food distribution, due to safety concerns. “We want to just keep doing the work as usual, but we need time to mourn … and we’re scared. We know that there are valid threats.”
The mayor’s spokesperson referred the Guardian to Wheeler’s press conference on Tuesday, during which he was asked whether he regretted his past comments about making protesters “hurt”. He responded that he was “not referring to or advocating violence”, adding, “If I regret anything it’s that I used a statement that could be used out of context for political gain.”
“We know that there are tensions with some members of the community and some do not feel comfortable talking to us,” Allen, the police spokesperson, added. “We hope that through continued dialogue, we can show that we do our work and pursue investigations without regard to political affiliation or involvement in lawful free speech activity.”
It wasn’t clear if Smith had a lawyer, and he could not be reached for comment.
‘She was dedicated to service’
Katherine Knapp, Knightly’s wife, said in an email on Sunday that Knightly had “always had a very strong sense of justice”, which became “more visceral” after the killing of Michael Brown in 2014. “Then watching Derek Chauvin so casually killing George Floyd with his hands in his pockets, uncaring that the entire world would be seeing it soon because he was a cop, who are so rarely held accountable for murdering anyone, but especially Black people – that’s when her new life’s mission began.”
“But she never became cynical, and always believed there were enough good people out there to finally change things for the better, like her compatriots in [the traffic safety] motorcade,” Knapp continued. “More than once, she was moved to tears because they are portrayed by cops as outlaws, and by extension the media. When in reality, they are the most good-hearted, selfless people she’d ever known, prepared to put their lives on the line to protect protesters and their basic right to free speech, without any acknowledgement. Yet she didn’t recognize that she was describing herself, too.”
Knightly, also known by the nickname T-Rex, would volunteer to help with transportation for people with disabilities during protests, Raiford said: “She was a peacemaker. She would help people pull together and work through the chaos. When you’re protesting, there’s a lot of trauma. She could see when people were hurting and help them.”
“‘Service’ is the word I would use to describe her approach to the world,” said Kathleen Saadat, her longtime friend in Portland. “She was about taking care of people. She knew what it was like to not have a whole lot, so she had compassion for people.” Saadat, 81, said Knightly loved to cook – shepherd’s pie was her speciality – and leaves behind a son.
Saadat said she and Knightly had long conversations about how to be most effective with activism: “June was incredibly introspective. She didn’t just act, she thought about what she was doing.”
They didn’t talk much about the dangers of protesting, but Saadat said they had a conversation acknowledging that “if you decide to get out there, you accept the fact that you might be killed”, adding, “You don’t expect it, but you accept it.”
This article was amended on 27 February 2022 to clarify that Knightly was working on traffic safety before the march began. A reference to one of the victim’s injuries was also removed after a witness said the prosecutor’s affidavit contained an error.
