Police Kill Antifa Protester Who Confessed to Portland Shooting
Plus: D.C. admits to racist gun-law enforcement, Trump mulls more tech bans, Homeland Security wants more biometric data, and more...
"Investigators haven't yet determined how many rounds were fired." A few hours after the release of a video outing himself as the person who fatally shot a Patriot Prayer protester in Portland, Oregon, last week, 48-year-old Michael Forest Reinoehl was himself shot and killed by police. The shooters were part of a federal task force that included U.S. marshals and FBI agents as well as local law enforcement, and they were there to take him in as a suspect in the August 29 slaying of 39-year-old Aaron "Jay" Danielson.
Reinoehl was "an Army veteran and father of two who has provided what he called 'security' at Black Lives Matter protests," reports Vice News. Reinoehl told journalist Donovan Farley that he shot Danielson in self-defense, believing that Danielson was about to stab him and his friend.
"You know, lots of lawyers suggest that I shouldn't even be saying anything, but I feel it's important that the world at least gets a little bit of what's really going on," Reinoehl said on camera. "I had no choice. I mean, I, I had a choice. I could have sat there and watched them kill a friend of mine of color. But I wasn't going to do that."
Reinoehl "had described himself in a social media post as '100% ANTIFA,' and suggested the tactics of counter-protesters amounted to 'warfare,'" notes Seattle's KOMO. "He had been shot at one protest and cited for having a gun at another."
On Thursday night, Reinoehl allegedly pulled a gun on a team of federal agents who showed up to arrest him. "Initial reports indicate the suspect produced a firearm, threatening the lives of law enforcement officers," said the U.S. Marshals Service in a statement.
"Thurston County Sheriff's Lt. Ray Brady said four members of the fugitive task force fired their weapons, including two Pierce County Sheriff's deputies, an officer from the Lakewood Police Department and an officer from the Washington State Department of Corrections," reports KOMO. "Brady said investigators haven't yet determined how many rounds were fired."
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The District of Columbia admits racist gun-law enforcement. The Washington Post reports:
An initiative cracking down on gun crimes in the District targeted three predominantly Black wards and was not enforced citywide as announced, U.S. prosecutors acknowledged in court records, drawing attacks that the policy disproportionately subjected African American defendants to lengthier prison terms.
The geographic targeting of the program launched in February 2019—under which felons caught illegally possessing guns are charged under federal statutes—was recently disclosed after a defendant challenged the program backed by D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D).
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English tutors and teachers caught up in TikTok ban. Trump's executive order targeting ByteDance, the company behind popular video app TikTok, also hits the nearly 4,000 U.S. teachers who teach English to Chinese children through the ByteDance-owned app GOGOKID.
The Trump administration is also considering banning even more apps as part of the president's paranoid crusade against products from China. The administration says it's a matter of national security.
QUICK HITS
• The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may start demanding biometric data from all immigration applicants. A new proposal at the agency "would give DHS the authority to require biometrics for every application, petition or related immigration request," reports CNN, which notes that "currently, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the DHS agency responsible for managing immigration benefits, requires biometrics only for applications that require background checks."
• The Tax Foundation analyzes the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, which is scheduled to get a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives later this month.
• Jessica Krug, a professor of African-American history at George Washington University, was just pretending to be black.
• An array of anonymous sources in The Atlantic have tales to tell about Trump's alleged disrespect for the military and dead troops. Make of them what you will.
• Protesters are heading to the Kentucky Derby.
• "Right under the nose of a president who promised to drain the swamp, one of the government's shadiest handouts to large banks and big companies looks like it will be renewed for another 25 years," writes Reason columnist Veronique de Rugy in The New York Times.
• Former Massachusetts governor and 2016 Libertarian Party vice presidential candidate Bill Weld is endorsing Joe Biden. According to The Hill, Weld joins "a group representing almost 100 former Republican lawmakers and officials" who want to see Trump defeated.
