The city of Portland continues to be a laughingstock as “anti-fascists” throw smoke grenades at prayer groups and right-wingers respond with paintball guns.
The inciting incident for this clash was a prayer service with about 50 people present. People dressed in Proud Boys colors appeared to be serving as security for the service. Antifa agitators tried to disrupt the service, launching smoke grenades and trying to dismantle the group’s public address system, according to the Portland Tribune.
Some details are a little hazy from there, given that police didn’t get involved and “had no interaction with either group today.” One woman attending the prayer service said antifa members “threw a flash bomb into a group of kids.” An antifa-affiliated Twitter account boasted that the group stole the prayer group’s water and food.
The ridiculousness of all of this is best summarized by one of the videos posted by the Post Millennial’s Andy Ngo. With a police officer watching from his car in the street, an antifa agitator pepper-sprays a counter-agitator. Paintball fire is returned, the police officer blares his siren, and the antifa losers collected on the sidewalk bolt around the corner.
After antifa attacked the Portland family Christian prayer event, another clash broke out when a masked antifa ran up to spray mace at another group & is shot at w/paint balls. Antifa member Dustin Brandon Ferreira (in wheelchair) can be seen in the video. pic.twitter.com/1RahBzLIxv
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) August 8, 2021
We’ve seen that the city’s willingness to tolerate antifa agitators has led to felonies. That this is an entirely preventable problem makes it even more disturbing, as these wannabe revolutionaries often fold quickly when presented with genuine pushback from law enforcement. Portland’s hands-off approach to black-clad rioters puts the city in the news for all the wrong reasons. If city leaders were capable of shame, they would have done something about it already.
