Portland police HQ attacked as man who killed pro-Trumper murdered

Protesters last night attacked the Portland police headquarters after an Antifa gunman who killed a Trump supporter was shot dead by US Marshalls. 

Portland Police Department released a press statement at around 2am this morning, detailing the events of the night, which involved a ‘mass gathering’ of people throwing rocks and projectiles towards the Penumbra Kelly Building and officers. 

The unrest came just hours after the killing of Michael Reinoehl, 48, who was shot last night as a federal task force tried to apprehend him in Lacey, Washington, a senior Justice Department official said. 

Reinoehl was the prime suspect in the killing of Aaron ‘Jay’ Danielson, 39, who was shot in the chest Saturday night, the official said.

At around 9.30pm last night, after marching towards the police department, protesters were told to move from the building otherwise they would be subject to arrest for criminal trespass, Portland PD wrote. 

Despite the warnings, police said the protesters continued to launch projectiles, including rocks and plastic water bottles, for over two hours before officers cracked down and made targeted arrests of two individuals. 

The side of the Kelly building was also daubed with graffiti during the unrest. 

Thirty minutes after arrests were made, a vehicle sped through the crowd, narrowly missing members of the group.  

Police also said that the protesters had brought cars with them, some with their license plates covered with duct tape, in order to purposefully block the roads around the demonstration. 

A journalist on the scene Andy NGO referred to the group as ‘Antifa black bloc’ and shared images of the graffiti they wrote along parking lines outside the building.  

‘Antifa black bloc outside the Kelly Penumbra police building in SE Portland wrote this everywhere on the street: “[Portland Police Bureau] murdered Michael Reinoehl.” Reinoehl, the #antifa shooter, was wanted by police for killing Aaron Danielson. He was shot dead last night,’ he wrote. 

He added that he was disturbed that the group were calling Reinoehl ‘the greatest ally’ and were not condemning the execution of 39-year-old Danielson last week. 

Just hours before the shoot-out with police last night, Vice released an interview with Reinoehl, who suggested he was defending a friend from being stabbed on the night Danielson was shot. 

‘I had no choice. I mean, I, I had a choice. I could have sat there and watched them kill a friend of mine of color. But I wasn’t going to do that,’ Reinoehl said in a clip of a video interview published by Vice News on Thursday. 

In the fragment of video shown by Vice News ahead of the full interview’s release, he does not say outright that he shot Danielson.