The estate of a man who was shot and killed last year in Portland, Oregon is suing the city over how it approached public safety.
According to the lawsuit, the mayor, Ted Wheeler, along with the District Attorney, the Police Commissioner and other city officials “created a vacuum where peacekeeping efforts and criminal accountability should be; in its place, an environment of vigilantism emerged that ultimately led to the death of Aaron Danielson.”
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Portland and obtained by the Epoch Times.
“Danielson was killed in Portland on Aug. 29, 2020. Michael Reinoehl, a self-described member of the far-left, anarcho-communist Antifa network, later admitted to shooting Danielson, who was wearing a hat bearing the logo of Patriot Prayer, a right-wing group, and has been described as a Patriot Prayer supporter,” according to the outlet.
The groups clashed before the shooting took place, “with little intervention by police officers.”
Mayor Wheeler, who oversees the Portland Police Bureau, “chose to allow rioters to attack a federal courthouse in the city during the spring of 2020, triggering a deployment of federal officers to protect the building and leading to nightly clashes that drew nationwide attention.”
The rioters, which included members of Antifa, later turned their attention to other facilities, such as police precincts and the headquarters of the Portland police union.
The lawsuit says the approach used by police and prosecutors, which involved arresting some of the left-wing activists but later having their cases dropped or not pursued by prosecutors, also included “delegating the authority to engage in crowd control and crime prevention to individuals who provided security services for Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and right-wing groups such as Patriot Prayer.”
The suit is seeking $13 million in damages.
