Antifa Seizes North Portland Residential Neighborhood
BY Herschel Smith
3 years, 3 months ago
From a reader, this report from Portland (which you will not hear from the legacy media, at least, not honestly).
A group of guards watch the entrance to a barricaded section of road in North Portland. They’re armed, masked, and dressed in black—from their balaclavas to their boots to their bulletproof vests. It’s intimidating, but they’re also laughing with each other, which gives the barricade a feeling similar to entering a nightclub. Can you walk in or will the bouncer tell you to scram?
It’s actually a site of protest and siege: what the guards will later name the Red House Eviction Defense, or RHED. It takes the shape of a series of street obstructions that cut off three blocks of road from regular car and foot traffic. At the center of the blockades stands the Kinney family home—known as the “Red House on Mississippi”—home to a Black Afro-Indigenous family for three generations.
For six days, the activists guarding the gates have defied City Hall, chased off police, and captured national attention by occupying these blocks in a campaign to defend the three-bedroom house from seizure due to foreclosure.
They argue the foreclosure resulted from confusing, predatory lending practices and is the latest case of racist gentrification in the historically Black neighborhood of Albina. They also entered a fraught Kinney family legal saga that included reports of animal abuse on the property and the eldest son’s assertion that he is a “sovereign citizen” outside the reach of the U.S. court system.
The eviction defense was a remarkable escalation in activist tactics—the seizing of a residential neighborhood by an armed resistance to the legal system. By Dec. 13, it appeared to have worked: The Kinney family raised enough money to buy back the house, and Mayor Ted Wheeler brokered a deal to remove the barricades.
For five nights, Portland’s attention was fixed on this intersection. It was easy enough to walk through, but the armed guards deterred many. On any given night there were between 100 and 200 people inside the campground. We were two of them.
On this night, the blockade is brand new. Mississippi is blocked at its intersection with North Skidmore by tall, improvised fences of wood, furniture and scrap metal. Farther in, similar structures stand, suggesting fortifications for tactical retreat. Czech hedgehogs (six-armed metal posts that are difficult to drive over) and spike strips (planks with nails sticking through them) lie scattered across the asphalt to impede barricade-busting vehicles. There are more blockades to the east and to the west, one block out on either side, with checkpoints at every entry.
Expecting a morning raid by Portland police, a small crowd begins to gather before dawn by an inner barricade. Most of the activists are still asleep, many on miscellaneous mattresses close to the barricades.
Some of the awake activists are making coffee, surrounded by helmeted members of Portland’s independent press, who have covered protests for months. A figure in black approaches the press. “If you don’t want your camera smashed, you should leave,” he says.
Moments later, a water bottle flies over the barricade, slamming into one journalist’s backpack. Another bottle follows but misses.
Realize that the police were in retreat because they are under no legal obligation to defend or protect the residents in this neighborhood.
Also realize that if any of the residents were intent on stopping this, they waited far too late. Allowing them to become ensconced gives Antifa the tactical edge. The residents were thus unable to resist in any meaningful way.
Then again, most residents of Portland elected the officials who put up with, and even defend, these thugs. So most of them are communists, and wouldn’t choose to defend their neighborhood anyway.
Even if a patriot lived there, he is essentially alone. It matters where you live, and it matters who your neighbors are.
And tactical planning matters. You cannot resists thugs who have body armor and AR-15s if you don’t have body armor and AR-15s. And you cannot resist them well unless you can fight from behind pre-built cover and concealment (or at least, cover and concealment that you know exists because of prior scouting).
There are lots of lessons for us all.
On January 4, 2021 at 1:49 am, Mike Ockizard said:
Dont listen to anyone seriously who asserts they are a sovereign citizen. The two words are mutually exclusive.
On January 4, 2021 at 2:04 am, Wilson said:
I suspect that soon someone, or a few, will take matters into their own hands and start sniping these antifa. The pictures and descriptions of antifa in Portland seem perfect targets for a smart hunter, and Oregon has plenty of those.
On January 4, 2021 at 3:24 am, Name (required) said:
“Then again, most residents of Portland elected the officials who put up with, and even defend, these thugs. ”
See. I used to think this way as well. Then there was the recent election. With cheating so blatant only those undertaking it dare deny it took place. Is this the first time a US election was rigged? Or are all these places Democrat Strongholds because of cheating and a gutless opposition that refuses point blank to put up a fight?
On January 4, 2021 at 9:44 am, Ned2 said:
One sniper could send all these retards either straight to hell or back to their mommy’s basements in about a minute.
On January 4, 2021 at 10:27 am, Chris Mallory said:
Here is an account, supposedly from a home owner inside the “zone”.
https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/12/23/a-neighbor-describes-what-happened-when-law-enforcement-stopped-responding-to-an-armed-encampment-in-north-portland/
On January 4, 2021 at 11:35 am, Thorsten said:
Bulldozers, and other tracked machines fear no tack strips, and are easy to armor up.
On January 4, 2021 at 1:56 pm, Okanogan Offgrid said:
@Name (required), Oregon and Washington have been vote by mail for years now. I hope that answers your question. LOL
On January 4, 2021 at 2:21 pm, Trotsky's Icepick said:
Undocumented reparations for the good of the collective.
Esteemed party member comrade kommissar Wheeler of Portlandstan has many luxury dachas so he could easily write one off as broken eggs on the way to the glorious people’s collective utopia but they useful for now idiot burn it all down brigades would probably give him advance warning. Or would the Frankenstein monster do such a thing for the esteemed comrade kommissar?
On January 4, 2021 at 5:59 pm, Sisu said:
Name (required) I agree. The likelihood of past elections in long Democrat controlled voting districts, counties, states now must be assumed to be the result of systemic fraud. … It is naive, unproductive and self-promoting to think otherwise – hopefully Okanogan Offgrid will sign on and consider their opinions may need updating, as well their willingness to act vs simply criticize. …
On January 4, 2021 at 6:19 pm, Sisu said:
As to other comments regarding “vulnerability” – why educate the retards ?
On January 4, 2021 at 6:28 pm, Steve Miller said:
@Ned2 the first word that came to mind before I read any comments was …..sniper
On January 5, 2021 at 3:05 am, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ Name (Required)
Re: “See. I used to think this way as well. Then there was the recent election. With cheating so blatant only those undertaking it dare deny it took place. Is this the first time a US election was rigged? Or are all these places Democrat Strongholds because of cheating and a gutless opposition that refuses point blank to put up a fight?”
Remember the election of John F. Kennedy? JFK was pulled across the finish line by an 11th hour effort in Cook County and Chicago, led by Mayor Richard J. Daley, the man the late columnist Mike Ryoko called “The Boss” in his book of the same title.
When it looked like his son might lose a close-run vote, Kennedy patriarch Joseph Kennedy (yes, the same guy who during the early days of WWII thought Hitler and the fascists were OK guys) called in every favor he had and Boss Daley had the cemeteries and drunk tanks emptied and the “voters” casting ballots all night. In those days, aldermen brought around gifts and did favors for constituents for just such occasions.
The names and faces change, but the song remains the same, doesn’t it?
On January 5, 2021 at 8:04 am, MMinAR said:
Any group trying something like that in my AO would last about 3 minutes.
If that.