Just as it became engulfed in a controversy over its handling of vigilante “citizens patrols” that have appeared in rural areas to defend against the nonexistent threat of “antifa arsonists” concocted by right-wing conspiracy theorists, the sheriff’s department in Multnomah County, Oregon—where Portland is the county seat—issued citations to three armed vigilantes late last week for stopping and threatening motorists.
The men—Joshua Smith, 36, Michael Meier, 36, and Travis Lucky, 18—were charged Thursday with disorderly conduct in the second degree, after having been interrupted by deputies while stopping vehicles at the gateway to the Columbia River Gorge and interrogating drivers. One driver complained that he had been followed by three vehicles and then blocked.
"The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office will not tolerate this type of illegal activity," Sheriff Mike Reese said in a statement. "If you see this activity or are stopped by a civilian, call 911, and a deputy will respond and investigate. We encourage people to call the sheriff's office to report suspicious activity and to not take action on their own."
Groups of armed men began setting up ad-hoc roadblocks last week in response to hoax rumors spread widely on social media—particularly Facebook—that organized groups of antifa activists were secretly setting the wildfires that swept the West Coast for several weeks, and then looting the homes and towns in their path afterwards. The hoax was inflamed even further when major right-wing media figures—including Donald Trump, Joe Rogan, and Fox News—amplified the rumors to their audiences.
Multiple law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, issued pleas to the public to stop spreading the false rumors—in no small part because the vigilantes not only pose a threat to public safety but to efforts to control the wildfires and evacuate citizens as well. “FBI Portland and local law enforcement agencies have been receiving reports that extremists are responsible for setting wildfires in Oregon,” Renn Cannon, Special Agent in Charge of Portland’s FBI field office, told Oregon Public Broadcasting. “With our state and local partners, the FBI has investigated several such reports and found them to be untrue. Conspiracy theories and misinformation take valuable resources away local fire and police agencies working around the clock to bring these fires under control.”
A report by Jason Wilson of The Guardian, however, also revealed that some deputies in local sheriff’s departments were openly encouraging the vigilante citizens patrols, even while warning against setting up roadblocks. A Clackamas County deputy has already been placed on leave after being caught on video offering advice to vigilantes at a roadblock, as well as spreading the false “antifa arsonists” rumors.
Citizens in the Multnomah County town of Corbett, as Wilson reported, had gathered to discuss self-defense measures against the feared antifa invaders. During that meeting, Multnomah County Sheriff’s Sergeant Bryan White—after giving a perfunctory warning against setting up roadblocks—generally encouraging the citizens patrols comprising the effort.
White indicated to the audience that Multnomah deputies would be comfortable with a range of actions, with the caveat that “openly displaying firearms ... is not something we’re gonna get excited about.” However, White told the audience that taking “photos of cars and even license plates” might be “a great resource” for police. And he encouraged residents to try “standing on the side of the road, parking on the side of the road, 20 deep, with signs and flashers on, that’s fantastic.”
One local resident who attended the meeting told Wilson that she saw it as a “recruiting and organizing event” for local vigilantes. White’s comments, she said, were “an hour of encouragement” for them.
County commissioners were in an immediate uproar. Commission chair Deborah Kafoury denounced the citizens patrols, saying in a statement at Thursday’s meeting: “I will absolutely not tolerate vigilantism of any kind in Multnomah County, especially when it further traumatizes people escaping a disaster.”
Kafoury told Multnomah County Sheriff Michael Reese to investigate the incident and report the findings back to the county commission, particularly regarding whether White in fact encouraged the patrols. “If that turns out to be true, it is categorically unacceptable,” she said.
None of the arson arrests so far have any substantive connection to leftist politics, and some have no connection to the wildfires. A Puyallup man arrested for setting a fire next to State Highway 167 near Puyallup, Washington, was identified by the right-wing Post Millennial as a “BLM activist” who apparently attended marches. What their report failed to mention was that the fires he set were easily extinguished, and that the man was not connected to any other arsons, nor was there any evidence that he was acting in concert with other arsonists.
Similarly, two Clackamas County, Oregon, men arrested for arson this week had nothing to do with the wildfires, sheriff’s investigators said. And a man arrested for arson in Portland for setting fires alongside the Interstate 5 corridor also was not connected to either the wildfires or left-wing activists.
Climate Feedback fact-checked the claims and found that the larger majority of the wildfires were sparked by ordinary sources: lightning strikes, power lines, camping, and vehicle muffler fires. (One fire in California—the El Dorado fire, which had burned 21,000 acres as of late this week, and in which a firefighter was killed Friday—was first sparked by a pyrotechnic device at a gender-reveal party.) Moreover, it noted that the extremely dry forest conditions that are the real fuel for all the fires—including those set by arsonists—are in fact due to climate change.
The vigilante citizens patrols reflected the eagerness of right-wing activists to engage in violent confrontations with activists, as well as their hostility to the presence of any kinds of minorities in their communities. The latter was embodied in an incident contained in the Guardian report involving an African American woman named Latoya Robinson, a resident of the nearby town of Sandy, who was among those stopped.
Robinson had evacuated to a friend’s home due to a raging wildfire near Sandy, but nonetheless found herself stopped with a carful of children by men wearing camouflage, carrying AR-15s and other weapons, and bearing no kind of identification or indication of public authority.
One of the men who stopped her, she said, asked menacingly: “You’re not from around here, are you?”