Lies and Apologies

Portland Police Chief Bob Day grovels to antifa

Leave it to Portland city officials and their burgeoning police oversight bureaucracy to confuse a press release with the Gospel Truth.

On Feb. 19, it will be three years since a protest at Normandale Park ended in gunfire between antifa protesters and a neighbor whose equanimity had been disturbed one too many times. A protester died at the scene, another died two years later, and the neighbor who opened fire was seriously wounded and is now in prison.

Notice the use of that word “neighbor.”

Benjamin J. Smith, then 43, lived in the Northeast Portland neighborhood where June Knightly, 60, and her antifa friends were gathering, preparing to head out and assert their free speech rights. In Portland, protesting is practically a pastime. A chance to socialize and enjoy some excitement — even bask in the glory of earlier protests.

The fun turned tragic when Smith shot and killed Knightly and wounded several other protesters, including a young woman known as Deg. She was left paralyzed from the shoulders down and later opted to end her life at age 32. (See “Normandale Unmasked.”)

Three years on, the only lessons learned from Normandale is how to mau-mau the Portland Police Bureau and force Police Chief Bob Day to apologize and try to rewrite history.

In his apology, Day goes above and beyond. He lies.

It’s true that an early press release on the incident misidentified Smith as a “homeowner” — not a “renter.” In the immediacy of multiple shootings in a chaotic scene, the cops failed to find out if Smith was paying a mortgage or rent. The person who wrote the press release probably wanted an easy label to distinguish him from the protesters.

What really galled the protesters — and their supporters at the Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing — was that the press release failed to flack for antifa. Specifically, they wanted the police to thank one of the armed protesters for shooting Smith.

Here’s how Day delivered on that: “In all likelihood more people would have been hurt, if not killed, if not for the efforts of a participant in the demonstration who fired at the shooter and ended the threat.”

Note the chief’s word choice, his use of “participant” as opposed to “protester” — even though that was who the armed “participant” was associated with — antifa protesters. Or, as he has been called in a sympathetic documentary “an armed guard” or “armed volunteer.”

The protesters finally got what they wanted — a public apology from the police chief himself.

What is fascinating about the chief’s apology is the ingratitude with which it later was greeted by PCCEP members. (PCCEP bios can be found here.) These volunteers who serve as “community oversight” on Portland police take themselves very seriously, particularly now that another group of cop watchers called the Community Board for Police Accountability will be selected later this year.

PCCEP met Jan. 29 to review and recommend the corrected version of the three-year-old police press release. They were supposed to take up the issue at 7 p.m. But the chief’s apology went up on the Portland Police Bureau website at 4:21 p.m.

What followed for the next hour and a half was a tortured back-and-forth among members about whether their approval of this apology still meant anything. They hadn’t formally voted on it, and it was already public. Egos were on the line.

They liked that the chief called out the “pain and trauma” that had been caused when Smith was referred to as a “homeowner” instead of renter.

But the question of timing confused PCCEP member Odelia Zuckerman.

Her concern: “Why it was released two hours before potentially voting on this.”

She worried that trust was being lost.

Then Stephanie Howard, former criminal defense attorney and now Director of Community Safety for Portland, attempted to smooth over hurt feelings by apologizing and apologizing and apologizing. It was her fault for having posted the chief’s apology before PCCEP got to weigh in with a recommendation.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

She had met with “survivor groups” and was trying to facilitate getting the announced apology out as soon as possible.

“I am so sorry …. I apologize for that.”

PCCEP member Ashley Schofield asked, “What does this do to our recommendation? … To me, I think the statement pretty much went over what we were asking for. … Maybe we could have Chief Day come to a future meeting … a pathway into trust and healing.”

Why didn’t the apology mention why the system failed in the first place, asked PCCEP member DeVante Minnieweather.

“It took them a very long time to issue a correct statement,” he said.

Zuckerman questioned whether there were attempts to “undermine the work we are doing. … We did put in this work, and it should be recognized.”

“How is the community to trust that a similar lapse does not happen again?” asked Minnieweather.

“Why was this error made?” said Schofield.

This is the same oversight group that monitors Portland Police Bureau’s equitable policing efforts. This group, whose members have minimal experience in law enforcement, also weighs in on the settlement agreement between the U.S. Department of Justice and the city of Portland after police were found to use excessive force against the mentally ill.

Could it be that until the Normandale shootings, PCCEP members had no idea that press releases could have errors?

Ask any news reporter if they have ever encountered an error in a press release. (Note: The agenda for the Jan. 29th PCCEP meeting misspelled Minnieweather’s last name. Is an apology in order? He is one of PCCEP’s black members. Have white members had their names misspelled?)

PCCEP has been pushing for the Normandale apology for more than a year. As evidence of police wrongdoing, the group offered a story from The Guardian, headlined: “A gunman killed and injured protesters at a BLM march. Why did police blame the victims?”

The story alleges that the survivors “of a mass shooting have publicly shared video contradicting police claims that victims were armed and part of a ‘confrontation.’”

The video confirms nothing of the sort. I watched it last year at an October PCCEP meeting where it was shown as part of a “documentary” called a “The Murder of June Knightly.”

Even though PCCEP’s agenda included an enticement — “Dinner will be provided” — only about 20 showed up in person. Another 17 watched via Zoom. (Among those who showed up in person was antifa stalwart John Colin Hacker.)

The documentary by Forensic Architecture shows that Knightly was one of the women who assisted antifa protesters by directing traffic. They called themselves “corkers.” In Police Chief Day’s apology, he called them “traffic safety volunteers.”

Much of the video in the film was shot by Dajah Beck, another corker/protester, who wore a GoPro camera on her motorcycle helmet. She also brought some history with her: In 2021, she participated in a violent antifa riot in Tigard targeting police and businesses. (After Normandale, Beck pleaded guilty to rioting and first-degree criminal mischief, both felonies, in the Tigard case. She did no prison time.)

A year earlier during Portland’s riots of 2020, Beck was arrested for rioting and later filed a bodily injury claim against the city involving the police bureau. In 2021, the Portland City Council agreed to settle with her for $25,000.

According to the documentary, Knightly was regarded as a grandma to the other corkers and protesters.

“Our entire purpose is to prevent chaos,” Beck said of the corkers. “We are not blocking streets. We are redirecting traffic.”

They create a bubble around the protesters. Up in front are the “pushers,” who push against traffic and turn cars around.

“Anybody who wants to hurt antifa … have to go through us,” Beck said.

Smith lived in an apartment across the street from the park. His neighbors and roommate later told investigators that he was angry over the continual protests and felt threatened and outnumbered by left-wing extremists.

More than a decade earlier, Smith’s politics skewed to anti-police. He had been convicted of harassment and second-degree criminal mischief and ordered to do community service.

On the night of the shooting, Smith didn’t seem angry when he first approached the women about 7:30 p.m. and asked them how long they were going to be there. They told him they were leaving at 8. Smith left.

When he returned, he was agitated and things quickly broke down. An argument spiraled out of control along the lines of Smith snarling, “You fucking cunts,” and the female corkers taunting back, “You fucking terrorist.”

Beck said Knightly approached Smith and told him: “You’re not going to scare us. You’re not going to intimidate us.”

Although Knightly was considered to have skills in de-escalation, she confronted Smith to his face. He pulled out a .45-caliber handgun and shot her in the head, then fired off one round after another into the crowd.

The video shows instant chaos with Beck, now wounded in the arm, screaming “Gunshots! Gunshots! Gunshots! … We need a medic!”

The armed protester — or guard as Chief Day preferred to call him — arrived and returned fire with his own gun, shooting Smith and disarming him. Prosecutors didn’t file charges against David Bumpus, then 32, for shooting Smith, deeming his actions justifiable.

In promoting “The Murder of June Knightly,” PCCEP said it has been working to learn more about “the power dynamics and relationships between Portland Police Bureau and protestors.” It has identified three goals for the future of crowd control in Portland: Increased transparency; upholding free speech; improving public safety for all participants.

Not mentioned: How to improve public safety for those who don’t want to participate in other people’s riotous free speech.

In his apology, Chief Day said the Normandale shooting “forever changed Portland’s history.”

There’s no indication that it has changed anything.

Portland still can’t see itself as it is.

On the night of the shooting, Beck, Knightly, Deg and the assembled crowd were throwing a protest in honor of Patrick Kimmons, a black gang member who shot and wounded two other young gang members in downtown Portland. Kimmons was, in turn, shot dead by police.

Kimmons was just as violent as Smith, the man who would later turn a gun on Knightly and her friends.

Portland preens in its infamous history of protests. It’s not like the city has a string of major accomplishments it can point to (aside from wallowing in a guilt-trip for being “the whitest city in America.”)

With protests now starting up over Trump’s immigration policies, Chief Day’s apology could be an invitation for outsiders to come in and raise trouble.

Beck was arrested again last year at an anti-Israel protest in Portland. Her GoFundMe page, posted after Normandale, is still up. She and someone called “Domme Dark” (google it) have raised more than $155,000.

When Smith was sentenced to prison, Beck commandeered the courtroom during her victim impact statement. She turned the proceedings into a political exhortation. Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Christopher Marshall let her get away with it, possibly because of the agonizing life that Deg had been reduced to as a quadriplegic. (See “A Killer’s Penalty.”)

Beck exploited that sympathy, just as Chief Day acquiesced when Deg’s mother visited him, asking him to understand the importance of transparency and empathy.

What Knightly’s friends and Deg’s mother can’t handle is how their progressive politics and protests haven’t delivered what they expected. Deg’s mother can’t ask for an apology from Knightly, although had the latter been as skilled at de-escalating as her friends said she was, she might have shown some empathy to Smith, who felt threatened by protesters taking over his neighborhood.

And what of the classist gibe at Smith being a “renter” instead of a “homeowner”? Do antifa protesters deliberately choose working-class neighborhoods to stage their marches? Perhaps in future Portland protests, antifa agitators should visit Dunthorpe, Eastmoreland or Ladd’s Addition.

In preparation, they could pause for a moment of silence in memory of Knightly and Deg and, in the interest of empathy, consider how they would like it if pro-Trump protesters descended on their neighborhoods.