Killings of Aaron Danielson and Michael Reinoehl

In the weeks and months prior to the two killings, Portland was the site of significant protests against police brutality and racism in the United States, as part of the American and international protests that followed the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. These protests saw confrontations between protesters and right-wing counter-protesters. On August 29, 2020, hundreds of Trump supporters took part in the "Trump 2020 Cruise Rally", a caravan of more than 100 cars and trucks displaying pro-Trump flags and signs which drove through downtown Portland. The rally was set up by Meridian-based real-estate developer Alex Kuzmenko, who used an assumed name to organize the activities on Facebook and other social media. Caravan participants and counterprotesters got into heated and sometimes violent confrontations. == Aaron J. Danielson ==

Aaron Joseph Danielson (September 4, 1980 – August 29, 2020) was a resident of Portland. He never married and did not have children. Danielson was characterized by those who knew him as neither a radical, nor a racist or fascist, although he could on occasion be politically provocative and was said to have had a long-standing penchant for conspiracy theories. He had volunteered to provide security for the rally. Reinoehl was identified as the shooter on social media within hours. Immediately prior to the shooting, someone was heard to shout "We've got a couple right here", followed first by a warning that Danielson was preparing to use a can of mace and then two gunshots. According to the police affidavit, Danielson had a loaded Glock pistol in a holster and was holding a can of bear spray and an expandable metal baton. Danielson's can of bear spray is believed to have been struck by the first bullet due to damage to the can and a gaseous cloud that erupted after the first shot was fired. The second bullet hit Danielson's upper right chest, killing him. However, no knife was found on Danielson. Danielson's father, speaking to a reporter at home in Spokane County, expressed a wish for Democrats to "get together with the Republican side and put a stop to this violence. If I can lose the life of my son, they can sit down at a table and be civil to each other and start to work something out. I deserve that as a citizen." == Michael F. Reinoehl ==

Michael Forest Reinoehl (May 17, 1972 – September 3, 2020) Reinoehl had described himself as an anti-fascist activist although an Army spokesperson said there were no records indicating Reinoehl had served in the Army. When his snowboarding career waned, Reinoehl had worked as a construction contractor. Reinoehl's sister described him as "not very stable" to The New York Times and said that his involvement in the Portland protests "made him feel like his existence meant something again." Reinoehl was wanted for failing to appear in court for a June 2020 speed racing case. According to state police, he had raced his 17-year-old son on Interstate 84 at up to 111 mph, with his 11-year-old daughter as a passenger in his car. Reinoehl was arrested for driving under the influence, reckless endangerment of a person and unlawful possession of a firearm. According to The Oregonian, "the allegations were dropped on July 30 with a 'no complaint,' according to court records. The documents don't indicate why prosecutors decided not to pursue the accusations. Reinoehl spent no time behind bars." Reinoehl was shot and wounded in Portland in July after he intervened in an altercation where one of the participants was armed. On August 7, according to police investigators, Reinoehl sent a text message to his teenage son saying, "Sell me the gun for a quarter pound of weed and $100 I'm getting tired of this shit I need a piece now." In a June 2020 Instagram post that was characterized by The New York Times as "laced with violent messages", Reinoehl wrote that he was "100% ANTIFA all the way!" In the same Instagram post, Reinoehl also wrote: "We truly have an opportunity right now to fix everything. But it will be a fight like no other! It will be a war and like all wars there will be casualties." Reinoehl said he was prepared to fight "to change the course of humanity". In an interview aired by Vice Media, Reinoehl stated: "I felt that my life and other people around me's lives were in danger, and I felt like I had no choice but to do what I did. [...] They want to paint a picture of antifa having major involvement. A lot of people don't understand what antifa represents. And if you just look at the basic definition of it, it's just anti-fascist. And I am 100% anti-fascist. I'm not a member of antifa. I'm not a member of anything. Honestly, I hate to say it, but I see a civil war right around the corner. That shot felt like the beginning of a war." Reinoehl told Vice that he had not turned himself in after the shooting of Danielson because he feared that police were collaborating with right-wing protesters and that he might be killed in custody. Reinoehl told Vice that his home had been shot at and that he was being hunted. Despite this finding, officer reports released after the initial summary reveal that no officers described Reinoehl pointing or firing a weapon towards the officers. Several officers did report him reaching for his waist when the police opened fire. Brady said he did not believe the involved officers used bodycams or vehicle dashboard cameras during the incident. A statement by the U.S. Marshals Service said that Reinoehl had been armed and threatened the lives of officers. • One witness was reported as saying she saw Reinoehl fire first. One of the witnesses later said he and his coworker were misquoted and he was unsure whether Reinoehl had a weapon. • Another witness said he heard 30–40 gunshots and yet another witness said he heard 8–10. He said that after officers began firing, Reinoehl tried to duck for cover behind his car, which was blocked in by police vehicles. According to the official investigators, Reinoehl was first fired on as he was leaving the apartment building. The aftermath of the shooting was recorded on video and posted on the internet. Five eyewitnesses said the officers began shooting immediately after arriving on the scene. According to Vice, the information in the documents about the vehicle Reinoehl was in, what weapons he had, and who he was traveling with was detailed and accurate enough to support an inference that law enforcement had an informant close to Reinoehl. The task force that prepared to arrest Reinoehl was hampered in communicating since their radios were not working properly as they had taken them outside the jurisdiction of the local police department that usually used them. The decision to attempt the arrest seemed from the documents to have been taken by two officers who may have reacted to something they heard on the radio. An investigator found upon reviewing the contents of Reinoehl's car a week later that he had a disassembled assault rifle in a backpack in the car. An empty .380 caliber shell casing found in the car was linked to the handgun Reinoehl had on him when he died; this was cited in the documents to support the allegation that he had fired at the police, although the report concedes that there was no way to confirm when it had been fired. The shell casing seemed from the documents to have been at the center of an evidence tampering investigation conducted by an unnamed outside agency due to conflict of interest issues. Documents related to this were more intensely redacted than the other ones in the file, and indicate that the shell casing's presence was first reported in February 2021, when someone informed the investigators they had it and mailed it somewhere for a detective to pick up. The person who had learned of the casing said they had urged the person they had learned of it from to turn it over to the sheriff's office in October; that person asked them instead to keep it themselves or turn it over to a private investigator. Ultimately the first person advised the second that if they did not turn it over to law enforcement by a certain date the first person would report them for not doing so, which triggered the casing being sent to law enforcement via FedEx with an apparent homemade chain of custody form. The outcome of the investigation was unknown; the documents report that two people never returned calls concerning it. == Reactions ==

Danielson's killing Joe Biden, the Democratic Party's 2020 presidential candidate, released a statement on August 30, the day after the shooting, saying: "The deadly violence we saw overnight in Portland is unacceptable. Shooting in the streets of a great American city is unacceptable. I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same." Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at the California State University, San Bernardino, commented to Voice of America in an article published on September 1, when investigations were still ongoing, that if Reinoehl was implicated it would mark the first case in recent history of an antifa supporter being charged with homicide. Commenting in the Orange County Register on September 7, Levin said the incident was the "first known killing by an antifa supporter", describing it as "an outlier but also a bellwether. [...] You have a perfect storm in this country with a polarized population, a presidential election, a global pandemic that is frustrating and devastating people, and disinformation and conspiracy theories spreading on social media. The biggest threat is still, far-right white supremacist groups. But you also see that Facebook has become fertile soil for the mushrooming of small groups and lone actors." In October 2020, Danielson's killing was added to the CSIS terrorism database as a deadly "far-left" attack, the first such incident in over two decades. The killing is also referenced on the Anti-Defamation League's page on antifa, as the only "suspected antifa-related murder" to date; and the New America Foundation's tally of killings during terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 9/11, as the first recorded fatality in a far-left attack, while far right attacks have been regularly recorded for the past 25 years. Shortly before Reinoehl's death was announced on September 3, President Donald Trump tweeted asking why Portland police had not arrested Danielson's "cold blooded killer", adding that "[e]verybody knows who this thug is. No wonder Portland is going to hell!" In a Facebook Live video broadcast on September 13, Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Public Affairs Michael Caputo described the killing of Danielson as "a drill" for future political violence. In the same broadcast, Caputo espoused several other baseless conspiracy theories about the left's "armed revolt" and left-wing "hit squads." Reinoehl's killing After Reinoehl's killing, hundreds of people protested outside a police station in Portland. Trump commended Marshals for "strength" and "bravery". Trump referred to the matter again at a rally on October 15. He criticized Portland Police for letting days pass by without arresting Reinoehl, even though he had been quickly identified on social media, and then stated: "We sent in the U.S. Marshals. It took 15 minutes it was over. Fifteen minutes, it was over. We got him. They knew who he was. They didn't want to arrest him. Fifteen minutes, that ended." Reinoehl's estranged sister told NPR she was both angry with her brother and sad at his death: "It's awful. This whole thing is awful. There's a lot of people out there who feel like violence is the only solution to fixing things now, people on both sides." == See also ==