Andy Ngo Quotes

There exist large networks of far-left attorneys and legal groups who bring endless lawsuits in an attempt to defund, cripple, and embarrass police. In early June 2020, far-left BLM-style group Don’t Shoot Portland filed a class action lawsuit against the city to stop the use of tear gas.

When the SPD [Seattle Police Department] evacuated from the station on June 8, 2020, masked protesters stole city property—barricades, fencing, and more—to create makeshift barriers. These barriers became the official walls around CHAZ. A movement that has border abolishment at the core of its ideology immediately set up its own border to keep out outsiders. To fortify their barricades, armed volunteer allies moved in. They operated as a private militia complete with their own uniforms.

PDX Community Jail Support aided arrested rioters immediately after their release from jail. They set up a camp outside the central police precinct and offered arrestees food, phone access, legal support, and rides home. In short, they streamlined the riot catch-and-release process.

All that occurred on just the first night of rioting in Portland. It continued the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. For weeks, rioters descended on the Justice Center every night as if it were a ritual. They’d surround the building, confront the police standing guard, and attack them with projectiles and mortar explosives. Many of them used powerful lasers against the police that could burn eyes and cause permanent damage to vision. By the middle of the summer, these lasers became so numerous that the rioters who carried them organized into their own ‘unit, and the protests began to look like laser shows.

Responding police cruisers had their tires slashed by rioters who dumped nail-filled pool noodles on the street… the night before, rioters tried to break into the Portland Police East Precinct. Two elderly women who lived nearby tried to stop the mob from setting fire to the building. As one of them used an extinguisher to put out a fire, she was screamed at and harassed. The mob then hurled paint at them. One woman had it thrown in her face and eyes.

Outside of the Multnomah County Justice Center, the building that houses the Central Police Precinct, the Sheriff’s Office, and courtrooms, I was nearly killed by a violent mob. At no point did police intervene to help.

One new phenomenon that developed over the weeks of rioting was antifa activists masquerading as press in order to avoid being arrested by police or to get closer to them to throw projectiles. They simply printed out homemade media badges and wrote ‘press’ on their clothing. On multiple occasions, they were seen participating in violence themselves, such as throwing rocks and fireworks at officers or blinding them with flashlights. Sometimes they actively provoked the police into arresting them so their comrades could record video and send out tweets about police ‘targeting’ media. This was effective, and the ACLU of Oregon sued Portland police and federal agents on behalf of left-wing legal observers and journalists in July. A federal judge granted an emergency injunction exempting anyone who identified as a journalist from dispersal orders.

Every use of force by officers, whether it be tear gas, smoke, pepper balls, or arrests, was heavily scrutinized. Out-of-context video snippets were released on social media and published by news outlets, generating mass rage and universally negative press for law enforcement and the Trump administration. The officers were called ‘Trump’s gestapo,’ ‘storm troopers,’ and ‘thugs’ by Democratic politicians and the media.

Since 2015, untold numbers of victims, including other journalists, have been doxed, beaten, robbed, or killed by antifa militants. Few of them receive media attention—or justice.

In mid-July, the federal government put up a strong reinforced barrier around the courthouse. Other barriers previously put up were quickly torn apart. This one was made of thick steel, and it was reinforced by concrete blocks on the other side. The fence withstood for many days, but on the fifty-ninth night of rioting, hundreds gathered with tools and equipment to bring down the barrier. They used electric saws to cut into the fence, but the holes they made were too small for people to fit through. Next, they tied rope around strategic points of the fence, and hundreds of rioters participated in pulling it down.

Between May and October 2020, there were nearly a thousand protest- and riot-related cases in Portland referred to the district attorney’s office… Of the 978 arrests and citations, over 90 percent were rejected for prosecution. The main reason given? Out of the ‘interest of justice’—whatever that means. Despite accusations of systemic racism and misogyny in the Portland Police Bureau, the majority of those arrested (77 percent) have been white and male (67 percent).

As any good journalist should know, you don’t want to become part of the story. However, whether I wanted to or not, antifa decided to make me part of their story. After my 2019 beating, I became antifa’s public enemy number one. They sent me death threats, stalked me, and even showed up at my family’s home on several occasions. They have threatened to shoot me and to set me on fire. They’ve released my exact whereabouts in real time on social media. They’ve threatened my friends. The criminal threats are reported to the local police, but no one is ever held accountable.

For the next four weeks, antifa’s plan of escalating attacks on federal property to provoke a federal response for the cameras produced the exact propaganda they wanted. On any given night, there were dozens who identified as press. At its peak there were probably more than one hundred journalists and livestreamers, most of whom were sympathetic to the rioters and protesters. Instinctively, and at the urging or demand of others, their cameras were trained solely on law enforcement to capture their every move. Those who ran afoul of antifa’s rules were forced out or assaulted and robbed. Left-wing livestreamer Tristan Taylor was beaten to the ground and had his recording equipment stolen.

After months of coronavirus lockdowns in early 2020, race riots erupted in May in response to the death of George Floyd during an arrest by Minneapolis police. In the name of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and with the help of antifa, rioters and looters torched buildings, raided stores, and attacked law enforcement in dozens of cities. This resulted in over two dozen deaths.

Despite what was happening before our eyes, left-wing politicians and media denied antifa played a role. House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) called the movement ‘imagery’ during a congressional debate. And even though the public could plainly see masked militants openly planning and carrying out riot operations, we were still told there is ‘no evidence’ of organized antifa. ‘Who caused the violence at protests? It wasn’t antifa,’ declared one gaslighting Washington Post ‘fact-checker’ analysis, for example.