Letter from the editor: Responding to smears by the Portland Police

Letter from the editor: Responding to smears by the Portland Police

The Portland Police Bureau has a problem with effective policing and the only way they think they can solve it is by lying. The Post Millennial staff reporter Katie Daviscourt has been repeatedly assaulted and threatened. She was assaulted on Sept. 30  for reporting on Antifa and protest activity outside the ICE facility in Portland, Ore. since June. Yet in their documentation of the violence, Sgt. Andrew Braun claimed that Daviscourt was a “counter-protester," suggesting she was responsible for the violence committed against her. This is defamatory, false and is an unacceptable attack on the professionalism of one of our reporters.

Daviscourt has been diligently reporting on the protest and riot activity for months, recording her work both in The Post Millennial and on X for all the world to see while local legacy media stayed away for safety reasons. On Sept. 30, the world saw another report from Daviscourt, but this one ended with a concussion and an eye hemorrhage. She was reporting outside the facility when a woman swung a flagpole at her, bashing her in the face.

The woman was then whisked away to an Antifa safe house, but Daviscourt followed, bringing a Portland police officer with her. That officer caught up with the assailant, who balked at being questioned at all. The masked suspect claimed to be under age, and the officer simply let her go. Daviscourt followed, at her own peril.

The next day, the PPB had the audacity to put up posts asking for the public's help in identifying the woman they had in arm's reach just the night before. Now that she was well beyond their reach, they sought assistance in locating her. It was obviously an effort in vain and a false gesture.  

Going back to around 2017, the PPB has watched assaults by Antifa happen and then later responded with BOLO posts online. Even when the suspects were identified, as Andy Ngo has done repeatedly, they did not arrest them.

Instead, their interest was to defame Daviscourt and suggest she was the instigator of violence for choosing to be at the protests and riots. In Braun's report, written on Sept. 21, he included Daviscourt in the statement that said "These 3 counter-protesters continue to be a chronic source of police and medical calls at ICE. Despite repeated advice from officers to stay away from the ICE crowd, they constantly return and antagonize the protesters until they are assaulted or pepper sprayed.

"They refuse or are reluctant to walk away from these confrontations, even when police are in the area trying to meet with them. They even engage in the same trespassing behavior on federal and trolley property as the main protesters. Aside from the confrontation between opposing protesters, there was no reported activity around ICE that would have otherwise generated a police response."

In addition to smearing Daviscourt, he targeted TPM contributor Chelly Bouferrache and conservative activist Rhein Amacher. All three reported being assaulted by far-left extremists outside the ICE facility. 

For Braun, it's not the Antifa rioters who are the problem, it's the reporters who show up to document their activity. In the words of, Post Millennial Senior Editor Andy Ngo, Braun is "parrotting Antifa talking points, which justify violence against those they deem unwelcome in public areas they lay claim to."

Daviscourt's work brought the conditions in Portland to the national attention of media outlets and the White House. President Donald Trump, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice all became aware of the violence enacted by Antifa militants against law enforcement and federal facilities in Portland during the summer of 2025 as a result of her work.

Trump named Antifa a terrorist organization—this after the Biden administration determined that the militant group was merely an "idea." Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced plans on Sept. 28 to federalize some 200 National Guard troops to Portland to assist DHS in protecting the ICE facility. 

Oregon's Democrat leadership took issue with this move and brought their own motion asking for a restraining order against the federal government. The sanctuary state does not believe they are subject to federal law. A federal judge upheld that ask. 

The PPB has been under a federal consent decree since 2014 over their police practices stemming from a 2011 investigation by the DOJ. While parts of that decree were terminated, in 2022 the DOJ said that the Bureau was out of compliance with several parts of that settlement. 

The DOJ's Civil Rights Division under Harmeet Dhillon has launched an investigation into the PPB following Daviscourt’s assault and the arrest of conservative activist Nick Sortor, who was attacked while he was reporting on the activity outside the ICE facility on Thursday, Oct. 2. He spent the night in jail and was charged with disorderly conduct for defending himself.

In Dhillon’s letter to Portland City Attorney Robert Taylor and Chief of Police Bob Day, she wrote "PPB reportedly arrested individuals who may have been involved in an altercation choosing to arrest Nick Sortor, but not others."

"PPB reportedly failed to identify or arrest individuals who allegedly assaulted Katie Daviscourt, even after briefly detaining the individuals; and "the City of Portland reportedly has attempted to use its policing powers through a zoning enforcement action to limit ICE’s use of its Portland facility." 

Daviscourt's reporting has shown that the Portland Police appear deferential to Antifa, that they are more concerned with making sure the far-left extremists in the city are able to terrorize reporters, citizens, and bully law enforcement both local and federal, rather than protect law-abiding citizens. The Post Millennial stands by our reporter.