PORTLAND — Weeks before dueling rallies in downtown Portland in early June 2017, Portland police Lt. Jeff Niiya reached out to members of Patriot Prayer, Oath Keepers, the anarchist black bloc, Occupy Portland participants and others, hoping to avoid violence, police records indicate.
Portland police on Thursday morning released Niiya’s June 10, 2017, police report and transcription of his text messages from the protest day in response to a public records request by The Oregonian/OregonLive.
At the time, Niiya was the special events sergeant for Central Precinct and wrote in his report that it was his assignment to work with rally organizers. He said he was concerned about potential violence between the multiple groups.
“To achieve this, I had to make contact with all parties involved in the permitted Free Speech Rally and planned counter protests,” he wrote in his report.
Niiya recently has come under fire from Mayor Ted Wheeler, two city commissioners and others for later texts and emails with Joey Gibson, the leader of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer. A police internal investigation is underway into Niiya’s communications with Gibson, and Wheeler has called for an independent investigation into alleged police biases in response to city demonstrations.
The June 2017 rally was fraught almost from the start, with Gibson challenging the city’s liberal sensibilities with his brand of conservative politics and rhetoric. He clashed with the mayor in deciding to go ahead with the rally days after a horrific attack on a MAX train that led to the deaths of two good Samaritans who had intervened in what witnesses said was a racist verbal assault on two young women, including one wearing a hijab. Among those invited to Gibson’s “free speech” gathering were far-right figures known for espousing white nationalist views.
Early communications
Weeks in advance on May 17, Patriot Prayer’s self-described security detail leader, Lawrence Cavallero, contacted Niiya and Niiya asked to meet with him and Gibson in person.
In his first call with Gibson later that day, Niiya told him he didn’t want any of Gibson’s followers carrying weapons in the June rally. Niiya also told Gibson he had concerns about Tusitala “Tiny” Toese’s alleged assault of a man at a May 13, 2017, protest downtown, which was captured on video. Niiya said he told Gibson that he believed the Patriot Prayer activists were the aggressors against the anarchists then and advised that Toese would have been arrested if the victim had come forward. There’s no record Toese was ever charged in that assault, according to court records.
“I told him explicitly the Bureau does not take sides and we will arrest anyone,” Niiya wrote.
Niiya said he impressed on Gibson the need for his followers to “control themselves and not attack others,” and tried to discourage Patriot Prayer’s plans to march through the city, in an effort to keep problems away from the ongoing Rose Festival’s CityFair, his report says. Niiya also shared his dismay with Gibson that Patriot Prayer members were suggesting in online posts that police were supporting the patriot movement.
“This was not acceptable, and I wanted Gibson and the others to stop those types of messages,” Niiya wrote in his report.
Niiya, according to his report, reached out on May 19 to activist Star Stauffer, who aligns with the anarchist black bloc, hoping to get a message out to like-minded activists to “remain vocal only and separated from the patriots.” Days later, he also reached out to Jamie Partridge, a counter-protester who shared that so-called peacekeepers would be wearing orange vests during the June 4, 2017, demonstration.
On May 30, Gibson and police met with the mayor.
Niiya’s report reveals multiple text messages that he exchanged with Patriot Prayer, as well as counter-protesters and their “peacekeepers” before, during and after the June 4 rally. During the demonstrations, Niiya was in contact with Partridge’s peacekeepers, for example, alerting them to concerns about a masked anarchist group, or what Niiya called the “Rose City Redneck Revolt Group.”
Rallies meet downtown
That day, dueling rallies engulfed five blocks of downtown Portland as hundreds of Patriot Prayer supporters and counter-demonstrators hurled insults but largely avoided physical confrontation during a tense standoff. Three to four distinct groups of counter-demonstrators overtook the surrounding blocks, forming a perimeter along streets and sidewalks while chanting anti-hate messages and sometimes taunting Patriot Prayer supporters under the watchful eye of police.
Officers used flash-bang grenades and pepper balls to scatter an antifascist crowd gathered in Chapman and Lownsdale squares just north of the Patriot Prayer rally. By 6 p.m., each demonstration had subsided without any significant violence and police had arrested 14 people.
The release of Niiya’s June 2017 report came hours before Police Chief Danielle Outlaw and Wheeler were set to hold a public “listening session” Thursday night at a Portland church to hear community concerns raised by the recent release of hundreds of text messages between Niiya and Gibson in 2017 and 2018. At the request of the Maranatha Church, those who attended the session at 6 p.m. were to be screened upon entry.
Wheeler, who serves as police commissioner, last week called Niiya’s messages “disturbing,” said they appeared to “cross several boundaries” and “unnecessarily encourage” Gibson. In some of the messages, Niiya alerted Gibson about the movements of counter-protesters, told Gibson about police staffing plans and warned Gibson to have one of his followers take care of an outstanding Portland arrest warrant.
Niiya’s union president defended Niiya’s actions, and the Portland Police Commanding Officers Association has filed a grievance against the city and workplace harassment complaint against the mayor and two city commissioners.
