Portland Police Let Antifa Militants Go While Arresting Journalists

Arresting victims of Antifa and journalists who report on Antifa’s behavior seems to be a pattern for the Portland Police, according to reporting by Fox News’s Bill Melugin.

Independent journalist Nick Sortor says Portland Police arrested him Thursday night on a charge of “disorderly conduct” after Antifa militants surrounded and attacked him for taking unflattering videos of them. Antifa is a leftist domestic terrorist group that amped up its activities in the United States with the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots.

Friday morning, the Portland Police released a statement about the arrest that gives no details about the altercation.

At about 11:16 p.m., [the Rapid Response Team] moved in and arrested three people were arrested (sic) and all booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center (MCDC) on charges of Disorderly Conduct in the Second Degree:

Angela Davis, 49, of Vernonia, Oregon

Nicholas Sortor, 27, of Washington, DC

Son Mi Yi, 43, of Portland

The morning of Oct. 3, Melugin also posted a video of a female protester wailing after federal agents maced her. Melugin says Portland Police then took witness statements to “investigat[e] potential wrongdoing by the federal agent” rather than targeting the protester at federal facilities that have been under violent attack for the last five years.

Earlier in the evening of Oct. 2, Melugin’s crew recorded Sortor taking a flaming U.S. flag from a protester’s hands and stomping out the flames while onlookers taunted him.

Protesters became agitated when Sortor was recording them on a public street, threatening violence in retaliation for his reporting. Melugin noted that police observed the threats from across the street and did not intervene.

Friday morning, Sortor reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi called him to say she had ordered an investigation into the Portland Police Bureau over his arrest.

Earlier this week, Post Millennial reporter Katie Daviscourt got a black eye reporting in Portland after a protester whacked her in the face with a flagpole. The police response was pathetic.

After being injured, Daviscourt kept recording. No police immediately intervened as the protesters continued shouting and swinging flag poles. Near her, a man grabbed a Palestinian flag out of the hand of a protester. A small crowd surrounded him, whacked him, poked him with sticks, threw water on him, and put a stick in his face, using it to flip off his hat, even after he gave the flag back.   

Daviscourt followed the masked female who assaulted her and got the attention of a uniformed Portland Police “Liaison Officer,” asking him to arrest her. The officer, wearing a bullet-proof vest and a bunch of police gear strapped to his waist and leg, calmly walked behind the suspect on the sidewalk, and eventually caught up to her. For a moment, he put his hand on her large, heavy backpack.

“Do not touch me! I am underage!” the still-masked attacker claimed. So the police officer removed his hand and gave up.

The suspect and a masked friend then quickly walked away, as the Portland officer stood empty handed, in the middle of the street, then turned his back. Portland police put out a statement saying this was a “Dialogue Liaison Officer” who cannot get involved in enforcement action, but that he did follow the suspect and tell her to stop and that she was being detained.

She did not obey, so he called for additional resources, the statement said. Police have released photos of the women involved and have asked the public for help identifying them. But he did not follow them, help never came, and it is notable that police are not looking for the people in the video who assaulted the man who had his hat removed. 

Instead, Daviscourt followed the two for several blocks. They ultimately stopped at a trash-strewn tent where at least three members of the Antifa National Lawyers Guild stood, identifiable by their florescent green hats. The tent also had coolers and grills for cooking on the street.

Quickly, people in the tent opened umbrellas to block the view and shone a bright light at Daviscourt. That night, she had to act as her own police officer, injured and collecting evidence that will almost certainly lead to no arrest.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned Sortor’s arrest in Friday’s press briefing. She said President Trump will send more federal law enforcement to Portland and is exploring where the government may cut federal funds to the city if it does not cooperate with the effort to get crime under control.

Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.