On July 5th, amid ongoing civil unrest in the city of Portland, Oregon, one Michael Reinoehl attempted to resist arrest while carrying a loaded handgun at a “protest.”
Had he been prosecuted, the self-described “100% Antifa” member would have faced well-earned jail time. Then again it’s Portland.
He was already wanted on a separate warrant for failure to appear in court.
This wasn’t for a mere unpaid parking ticket, either. Reinoehl, who would go on to make national news after shooting a Trump supporter and then being fatally shot by federal agents himself, had been charged with DUI and endangering his own minor children.
As The Baker City Herald reported, the left-wing activist had been “charged with driving under the influence of a controlled substance, recklessly endangering another person and unlawful possession of a firearm. He was also cited for driving while uninsured, driving while suspended, and for speeding.” Criminal apologists would still call this a non violent offender deserving of a second chance but that is a discussion of another day.
Reinoehl had been racing his underage son at speeds of up to 111 miles per hour, past midnight, with his 11-year-old daughter in the backseat of his car.
But thanks to the city’s new obscene leniency towards crime, the case against Reinoehl for the July 5 incident was dropped with “no complaint.”
“So here you have an antifa member charged with absurdly reckless crimes in two separate instances, and yet the criminal justice system tolerated his dangerous behavior. The tragedy that ensued was then all but inevitable,” writes The Washington Examiner’s Tiana Lowe.
As Lowe explains, the DUI, resisting arrest, and illegal possession of a firearm all brushed aside, Reinoehl’s next infraction would be cold-blooded murder.
Reinoehl continued to attend Portland’s riots and went on allegedly to kill Trump supporter Aaron “Jay” Danielson. In particular Portland fashion, Reinoehl was not taken into custody, instead engaging in softball interviews with Vice and frolicking around the riots.
When the police finally came for Reinoehl, he reportedly brandished a firearm and was perceived as a threat by the police, who then responded as they had to: by shooting him.
Now, both Reinoehl and Danielson are dead.
These deaths, she concludes, could have been prevented.
But they weren’t.
Why?
Because “restorative justice.”
Multnomah County’s District Attorney Mike Schmidt vowed, on the onset of the unrest, not to “leverage the force of our criminal justice system against peaceful protesters.”
This term, “peaceful protesters,” is likely to be one of the most bitterly parodied terms of 2020.
“This policy acknowledges that centuries of disparate treatment of Black and brown people have left people with deep wounds,” Schmidt said of his office’s policy not to prosecute cases relating to these “peaceful protests,” which are known out here in the real world as “riots.”
“This policy recognizes in order to advance public safety, we must not only prevent crime but we must also promote economic and housing stability, educational opportunities, strong family and community relationships, mental and physical health and build trust with everybody in our community,” he explained.
There is almost too much bitter irony here to stomach. This social engineering experiment with people as lab rats has been leveraged to allow continued acute threats to public safety, threats posed by people who claim to be fighting against police violence.
This is the elephant in the room the radical left is hoping we’re too stupid not to notice: these people don’t want peace. They want to be the ones wielding the weapons. They want to be the ones in control. They will use violence to achieve their means. And unless the peace officers of our still civil society don’t wield the power they’re barely holding on to so as to contain this threat, the word “lawless” won’t even come close to describing the future we have to look forward to.
"*" indicates required fields
