Okay. I wake up this morning, I turn on the computer, and I see another story about a person being killed!
I read The Guardian version of what happened in Portland. (I read The Guardian first, because it is a British-based news source, that does NOT say who wrote the piece, so it should be less biased one way or the other than any American Liberal or Conservative news outlet. Right? The Brits really have no dog in this hunt, RIGHT?)
I had NOT heard of the shooting in Portland, so initially I believed this was yet another story about the killings in Kenosha by the kid who shot three people and killed two after Jacob Blake had been shot in the back 7 times by a cop. So I read this article, because it was titled:
Fatal shooting in Portland as Trump supporters clash with BLM protesters
Fatal shooting in Portland as Trump supporters clash with BLM protesters.
At first I wondered, “What the hell is going on in Portland now? The killing was in Kenosha! What the f—?”
Then I read the story.
After reading The Guardian’s version of what happened, I felt the headline would have been more appropriate if it had said something like:
“Vigilante KILLED in Portland Oregon, by pissed-off Protestor”
… because that’s apparently what really happened. A group of “Vigilantes” decided to take the law into their own hands, came ‘in mass’ to shoot-up the crowd of protesters with their own paint-pellets, tear gas and whatever they had. Apparently one (or maybe more) of the protestors got pissed-off, maybe because the cops were apparently allowing the vigilantes to do whatever they wanted, so this protestor fired back with deadly force and one of the vigilantes was killed.
Initially I thought, “Well that’s just too fucking bad! The vigilantes should have just stayed home, and not gotten involved. The vigilantes should have let the cops take care of the protestors, because that is what the cops are supposed to do. The vigilantes basically ASKED for it, and they got it! Too fucking bad.” But then I decided to do some more reading.
So I read this story from The Willamette Week (an Oregon publication that Wikipedia lists as an “alternative weekly” and says nothing about it being either conservatively or liberally biased, only that it “eschews comprehensive coverage of general news” and does say that this particular publication won a “Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting”). So the reporting should be accurate, right?
The article was titled:
One Person Shot to Death Amid Trump Caravan in Downtown Portland
Witnesses described a hushed scene as police officers gathered around the body of a young man lying in the street.
Willamette Week.One Person Shot to Death Amid Trump Caravan in Downtown Portland.
Okay, the headline does say “Amid Trump Caravan” but instead of being biased, that actually is accurate. It was a ‘Trump Caravan’ of Trump Vigilantes, shooting paint balls and gassing Black Lives Matters protestors. So, that is accurate, even though it may look a little biased. Anyway, I read the story.
The article specifically stated:
Witnesses at the garage, including independent journalist Laura Jedeed, described a hushed scene as police officers gathered around the body of a young man lying in the street. An ambulance arrived, then drove away without the man inside.
That was a stark contrast to minutes before, when a fleet of pickup trucks waving Trump banners rolled through downtown, horns blaring, with red-shirted young men leaning out of windows to yell racial slurs and deploy pepper spray on pedestrians, many of them leftist protesters, who blocked the trucks’ path.
Obviously it was a Trump Caravan. Obviously it was a group of vigilantes who decided to take the law into their own hands and attack the BLM protestors. Apparently the cops were concerned when one of the vigilantes was killed. My question was, at this point, what were the cops doing when these Trumpsters first rolled their caravan into town? The brief article does not say. The cops probably should have stopped the caravan. If they had, then the shooting would not have happened, and the dead guy would not be dead. Right?
Then I read the FOX News report of the same incident. It was titled:
Portland shooting leaves 1 dead as pro-Trump group clashes with BLM
Portland shooting leaves 1 dead as pro-Trump group clashes with BLM.
The story began:
Violent clashes between a massive pro-Trump caravan that drove through Portland, Ore., and Black Lives Matter protesters left at least one person dead in a shooting Saturday evening, according to reports.
Okay, so now we know that it was “a massive pro-Trump caravan” that basically attacked “Black Lives Matter protestors”. So far it seems accurate. At least the FOX version agrees with the other two. Then it says:
Portland police said they were investigating a homicide in the area where the pro-Trump group and counter-protesters clashed but did not say whether the gunfire was directly related to the protests.
Well, that part does NOT seem entirely accurate. The Pro-Trump Caravan was not made up of “protestors” or even “counter-protestors” it was basically a bunch of vigilantes who were attacking the protestors. That is simply a fact, and FOX even seems to support that FACT in its opening lines. In this case the COPS lied. The FOX article goes on to say:
The pro-Trump rally’s organizer, who coordinated a similar caravan in Boise, Idaho, earlier in the week, said in a video posted on Twitter Saturday afternoon that attendees should only carry concealed weapons and the route was being kept secret for safety reasons.
Tensions began escalating to violence earlier in the day when racial-injustice protesters confronted the pro-Trump caravan as it drove through the city following a rally at the Clackamas Town Center.
So,
1. the Pro-Trump people were instructed to carry “concealed weapons”. Thus, they had DEADLY FORCE TOO.
and
2. This was not a spur of the moment thing, it was a planned attack that apparently had happened before in Idaho, at least one full state away.
The article went on to say:
Protesters attempted to stop caravaners by standing in the street and videos from the scene showed sporadic fighting, as well as Trump supporters firing paintball pellets at opponents and using bear spray as counter-protesters threw things at the Trump caravan.
The shooting happened after most of the caravaners had left the downtown area,
I actually have to commend the FOX reporter for giving us more information on the matter, but I have to wonder why the protestors were trying to stop the caravan. What were the police doing? Shouldn’t the cops have tried to stop the caravan? I think they should have. I think that was their job, to PROTECT and SERVE by preventing violence and bloodshed. But, as the story says, “The shooting happened…” So, obviously the cops were NOT doing their job. And the FOX story ends with this statement:
Portland has seen more than 90 nights of continued protests and rioting in the downtown area and other parts of the city since May 25, when George Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis.
Which only says to me that the COPS have NOT been doing their job for about “90 nights” in Portland, so eventually something like this was bound to happen, because the COPS have NOT been doing their job.
Then I read this:
Investigators want answers in deadly protest shooting; Trump sounds off
Lovell: ‘This violence is completely unacceptable’
Investigators want answers in deadly protest shooting; Trump sounds offKOIN.com·
(KOIN is a CBS affiliate TV Channel in Portland, Oregon. This story was posted by their news staff. Lovell is apparently the Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell.)
Besides also reporting that the dead man was wearing a “Patriot Pride” hat, as all the other reports did, this one also reported that Donald Trump got into the act,
On Sunday, Trump issued a flurry of tweets and retweets including several that blamed Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler for the death and one in which the president appeared to be encouraging his supporters to move into Portland.
“GREAT PATRIOTS!” Trump wrote as he shared video of his supporters driving into Portland to confront the protesters.
Let’s state for the FACT that these people were NOT “GREAT PATRIOTS!” as Trump called them. They were vigilantes, who previously PLANNED this ATTACK against BLM Protestors, because the COPS (under Chuck Lovell) had not done their job for about 90 nights.
In fact:
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf blamed local officials for failing “to protect their communities.”
“I’m asking Portland officials, so that’s the mayor, that’s the governor and that’s local law enforcement, to do their job to address any violent activity that is occurring in their streets,” Wolf told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Well, Chad got the first part right, but after that he blew it. “Local officials” in Portland had NOT done their job. But those “local officials” were THE COPS not the mayor or governor. It was local LAW ENFORCEMENT which FAILED to do its job that ultimately is responsible for the Trump Vigilante getting killed. That is on the shoulders of Chuck Lovell and no one else.
Trump, Wolf and Lovell can PASS THE BUCK onto somebody else, but the FACT is TRUMP and WOLF are totally WRONG, because the Oregon Governor has nothing to do with it, the Portland Mayor did his job by turning the matter over to the Police, and it is Chuck Lovell and his COPS who dropped the fucking ball, which is why that Trumpster is DEAD!
The person who shot and killed the Trumpster is responsible too, but that would NOT have happened if at any point the goddamn COPS under Lovell had done their fucking job.
And Trump should keep his fucking shit-hole mouth shut and not tweet about shit that he ultimately caused. After all, what did Trump tweet or say about the KILLER IN KENOSHA? Another reason we have to get that Orange Asshole out of our White House.
Then I read this:
White House chief of staff says Trump ‘is on the side’ of ‘rule of law’ amid protest violence
In the wake of two deadly shootings at protests this week, Mark Meadows pressed states to accept federal law enforcement assistance.
White House chief of staff says Trump ‘is on the side’ of ‘rule of law’ amid protest violence.
At one point the article states, and I quote:
And while he’s issued broad denunciations of violence, Trump tweeted during protests in Minnesota after the shooting death of George Floyd by police that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Twitter flagged the tweet on its platform for “glorifying violence.”
CORRECTION: George Floyd was NOT shot to death. He died because a COP kept his knee on the neck of George Floyd even though George begged him to stop and stated he could not breathe. The COP killed George Floyd, but NOT with a GUN. And, Trump has done NOTHING but Tweet his ignorant Tweets. And, Meadows is an IDIOT APOLOGIST for Trump.
Well the “shooting” has started. It started in Kenosha and continues on in Portland, and TRUMP IS AN IDIOT!
Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., the co-chair of former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, took issue with Meadows’ framing in an interview immediately following Meadows’ comments.
“When you talked to the chief of staff, Meadows, he said President Trump is on the side of law enforcement. Well, the question becomes: Who is on the side of Justice? Who is on the side of constitutional policing? It’s not about law enforcement or protestors, it’s about making sure that police are held accountable when they violate people’s constitutional rights, when they shoot unarmed Black people,” he said.
That’s right!
WHO IS ON THE SIDE OF JUSTICE?
WHO IS ON THE SIDE OF CONSTITUTIONAL POLICING?
WHO IS HOLDING THE POLICE ACCOUNTABLE?
It’s not Trump, that’s for damn sure.
WATER 