It's widely agreed that an Antifa-supporting protester killed someone. whether it was murder we'll never know as he was killed by US Marshals prior to trial (and whether or not that was murder, we may not know any time soon either). there was a strong self-defense argument to be made - and yes I read the criminal complaint that was used to swear out the warrant, and don't think it would have stood up to close scrutiny.
How do you figure? From the evidence collected it appeared to me (and others) to be premeditated. [0] Particularly interesting to me were images from the garage security camera showing Reinoehl lying in wait.
[0] - https://www.mcda.us/index.php/documents/state-of-oregon-vs-m...
Reinoehl's presence in the garage does not seem to me to meet any definition of 'lying in wait', since he had no prior knowledge of anyone coming that way, and indeed Danielson (the shooting victim) and Pappas (his buddy) did not go in that direction. As documented, Reinoehl looked over his shoulder, appeared to notice the two men walking behind him, and entered the garage where he paused briefly and seemed to draw his weapon. It is just as easily argued that he took cover out of anxiety that he was being followed, and then exited the garage after assuring himself that he had access to the weapon. You will recall that the same photographs you cite seem to show Danielson holding a large canister of pepper spray and a baton in his hands (documented on p17).
Lying in wait is an aggravating factor demonstrating a murder's prior intent to assail an unwary victim. Ducking out of sight and readying a weapon might be a very reasonable thing to do if you discovered you were being followed by a person bearing two weapons.
A trial would have looked into what interactions those parties had earlier in the day, and the exact sequence of events around the shooting, ie who approached who and whether Reinoehl shot Danielson first or whether the shooting was a response to Danielson spraying Reinoehl. I don't know the answer to the first two questions and while it appeared to me that the use of pepper spray preceded both gunshots, being sure would require access to the original video and testimony from the multiple witnesses.
Lying is technically a different angle, yeah.
The protests aren't peaceful, but that's deliberate. "No Justice; No Peace" means something. The protesters have been non-violent, but non-peaceful on purpose. The police have consistently escalated (just like they did in Seattle.)
* Defunding. There was a moderate budget cut already, but we want more, and we want the city to not just remove budget from PPB but actually put money into social welfare programs.
* Non-violence. The city council and mayor theoretically have the power to order the police to stop using tear gas right now, and similarly they could order the police to be less violent in all of their activities.
* Justice. The police are failing to arrest fascist street thugs, and instead send them text messages letting them know not to show up [0]. Meanwhile they do nothing to prevent federal officers from using unmarked vans to yank people off the streets.
* Polis. The police mostly live in Vancouver or its suburbs, over in Washington State. This is absurd; police ought to live in their respective precincts, just like how city councillors must live in their district. Even my credit union requires me to live in my county!
* Reform. There are many popular initiatives [1] which would force police work to be more humane and considerate, if only they were adopted.
I would consider any of those to be a victory. We got some defunding earlier, and protestors agreed that it was a good token effort but not enough.
Nobody wants the old routine of police violence and abuse. Nobody particularly wants to be tear-gassed, I think.
[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/disturbing-texts-betwee...
I am too far away from the details and the history of the Portland police department to pretend to know what the right course of action is, but it seems to me that the "non-peaceful" part of the protest is actually making any resolution that much more difficult. That is to say it is a tactic that makes the problem worse not better.
I'm also pretty mystified as to why the normal political process was not able to resolve concerns about police activities/methodologies. As far as I can tell from afar, all the Portland elected officials are ideologically aligned with those initiatives. What prevented them from responding and if there really isn't the political will to make those changes through normal peaceful means, by what right to the protesters get to force their will on the entire community?
If there is really a story about elected officials ignoring or contributing to violations of individual rights, failure to ensure due process, failure to manage the police force, and so on then why isn't that story being told or reported on? If that is really the back story then the protestors have utterly failed to communicate that in an environment where it should be almost trivial to gain public visibility for those problems.
Portland is even more puzzling because I believe the Mayor is also the police commissioner so there shouldn't be any problem with control of police policy as there can be in other jurisdictions where there is less direct oversight of the police.
Getting back to Portland - if you haven’t kept an eye on what’s happening there, and are denying that there are disruptive riots virtually every night in one part of the city, then you are gaslighting. There is a mountain of evidence that a group of antifa/BLM participants willfully partake in criminal activity under the guise of racial justice with regularity (example https://www.cbsnews.com/news/portland-protests-police-declar...). One of them even murdered another citizen recently (see https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/03/us/michael-reinoehl-arres...).