As Oregon battles more than a dozen wildfires and rumors about looters and arsonists flare, the appearance of armed civilian checkpoints has sparked a fierce debate about vigilante activity and how law enforcement should respond.
Residents of the unincorporated town of Corbett in Multnomah county met with law enforcement officials on Saturday evening, after several people complained of being subjected to illegal roadblocks the previous night.
Vigilante groups had sprung up on Friday afternoon, after the detonation of a firecracker led to a brushfire on private property that was quickly extinguished.
Civilian residents, some heavily armed, set up at least two roadblocks with cars and household chairs, according to residents and recordings obtained by the Guardian. Drivers who were stopped said they were asked to identify themselves and their connection to the town and claimed that on at least two occasions, police were on the scene and did not intervene in the illegal traffic stops.
One of those stopped, Latoya Robinson, had recently evacuated with her family from Sandy, Oregon, to what she thought would be the relative safety of Corbett, where she was staying with a friend.
Robinson said she and her children were stopped in their car between 6.30 and 7pm on Friday at the junction of Louden and Littlepage Roads, at a roadblock with “at least four vehicles” parked nearby.
Her description is confirmed by a cellphone video made of the aftermath of the stop by one of her children.
The men who stopped her, most of whom were armed, were dressed in “hunting style clothes, camouflage”, she said, and did not identify themselves or mention any legal authority under which they were acting.
Robinson said she was questioned by a “heavily armed” man carrying a AR-style long gun and a visible sidearm. She said the man asked at one point: “You’re not from around here, are you?” which Robinson, who is African American, understood as having racist overtones.
Eventually the men let her pass on to her friend’s place. On her return journey, she was stopped again. She said she saw two Multnomah county sheriff’s office (MCSO) cruisers stopped by the roadblock, and an officer talking with one of the people running it. She said the deputies did nothing to intervene in the illegal stop.
Another local resident, who asked not to be named due to safety concerns, said she had been stopped on Friday evening in a similar fashion on Louden. She said she saw an MCSO cruiser driving in her direction, away from a second roadblock structure 50 yards ahead, leading her to assume that police were aware of the vigilante activities.
Concerns over a town meeting
Multnomah is the state’s most populous county, taking in the city of Portland and points east, including outer-metropolitan Gresham and several unincorporated communities near the entrance of the Columbia River Gorge, including Bridal Veil, Orient and Corbett.
Social media appeared to have played a central role in setting up the events in Corbett. Corbett’s main (and private) local Facebook group last week was consumed with rumors of “antifa” militants traveling up into the Columbia River Gorge to set fires and destroy the town.
On Friday, one member of the Corbett area group wrote: “It seems like the militants are burning out/up the rural folks closest to the cities because the only way they can fight is dirty vs the more conservative/rural folks would hand them their @$$es in an altercation.”
In response, a member who had been promoting an armed response wrote: “That’s exactly what we were thinking. At least most of us can mobilize and bring our arsenal with us.”
The same day, elsewhere, another wrote: “Residents are guarding at the bottom of Louden on their own with the blessing of police … Police said to do what you must. I thank these residents for being our watchdog.”
The Multnomah county sheriff, Michael Reese, however, put out a video on Saturday warning residents to not set roadblocks or “stand in a travel lane”.
Reese would go on to issue another statement on Friday’s events later that night, saying: “The sheriff’s office will not tolerate illegal activity of any kind, including illegal roadblocks.”
Town residents gathered outside the Corbett fire station later that night. Videos on YouTube show a Corbett school board member, Todd Redfern, opening the meeting by referring to the previous night’s events. “A couple of people were upset that we were stopping them. I mean, we weren’t stopping them, that we were there: they were upset we were there,” Corbett told residents gathered in the car park of the Corbett fire station.
Redfern ran through logistical details for further patrols. “We’ve been running good and strong at both checkpoints, Louden and Larch Mountain, until the wee hours – two o’clock or something,” he said, according to the video. “If anybody here can actually come in at one o’clock, two o’clock and release the guys until the next morning when more people can come, that would be greatly appreciated.”
A separate audio recording obtained by the Guardian documents the sheriff’s sergeant Bryan White speaking after Redfern and echoing the sheriff’s warning about setting up roadblocks. But White did not explicitly discourage further citizen patrols and went on to indicate that the MCSO would be comfortable with a range of actions that stopped short of that, saying that “openly displaying firearms ... is not something we’re gonna get excited about”; that taking “photos of cars and even license plates” could produce “a great resource” for police; and that “standing on the side of the road, parking on the side of the road, 20 deep, with signs and flashers on, that’s fantastic”.
Instead of stopping cars, White says, residents can take pictures and record license plates.
“It’s a great way to make folks know that they’re being watched without actually standing in the middle of the road and making people feel like they are going to have to stop,” White said.
He added such actions may be useful to police, since “if we need help later to track down a car, you guys are a great resource, as far as photos of cars and even license plates. If you want to sit there and write down license plates of cars as they drive by, obviously that’s fine.”
Asked to clarify the meaning of “suspicious”, the deputy said “suspicious is anything that feels out of place to you”, adding “you know your neighborhood and know what your neighbor drives” and “anything that feels out of place to you, just listen to your gut because nine times out of 10 your gut is right”.
White also warns that Oregon’s strict laws on menacing have a low threshold. “Most folks here have been around firearms long enough, have been responsible firearms owners and understand that you can still protect yourself with a firearm and do so in a tactful manner that does not necessarily draw attention to it right away, or make anybody else feel uneasy while you’re having a conversation with them,” he said.
Hope Beraka, a local resident who attended the meeting, said she viewed it as a “recruiting and organizing event” for local vigilante groups and that she saw comments made by White as “an hour of encouragement” for vigilante action short of roadblocks.
The Multnomah county sheriff’s office (MCSCO) said the meeting and the deputy’s remarks were in no way meant to encourage vigilante patrols. “MCSO does not support or tolerate such activity, and it is illegal,” the department said.
“Sgt White was asked to speak on our efforts to keep the community safe, through high-visibility and other special patrols, and to inform residents what they legally could and could not do,” the department said.
In response to further, detailed questions on White’s remarks, and whether it would be better to explicitly discourage citizen patrols, MCSO said it would not comment without access to the full audio recording, provided by a confidential source, but it added: “At the onset of the reports of roadblocks on Friday night, we published a thread message on social media strongly discouraging the activity.”
Other residents were uncomfortable with the tenor of the meeting. At one point, a resident takes issue with the group and its methods. “I own firearms, I believe in firearms, I believe in the second amendment. I also believe that an armed group of citizens is a militia. I also believe that checkpoints with armed citizens is against the law,” he said.
The man tells the group to “drop the guns”, adding that “I don’t feel safe in my community” before being shouted down and briefly approached by another man seeking to stop him from talking.
Redfern, the school board member who addressed the meeting, did not respond directly to detailed questions about his role in the events and directed the Guardian to another resident who had been involved in the militia patrols.
Fears of emboldened vigilantes
Reports of vigilante activity in rural Oregon have multiplied as first responders struggle to keep up with the wildfire emergency, and baseless rumors that “antifa” arsonists are to blame spread rapidly on social media. On Thursday, a photojournalist reported being held up by armed men in Estacada, Oregon, and three journalists were confronted by civilians armed with assault rifles in Molalla.
Several local residents told the Guardian the sheriff’s office instructions to halt illegal stops had immediate effect, and that there had been no further checkpoints or roadblocks since Saturday’s meeting.
But some also said they were worried that the meeting would embolden armed vigilantism in a town where they say some nurse a profound suspicion of outsiders and newcomers, and others are openly racist.
One local resident, who asked not to be named, citing safety concerns, said the incidents were in line with the experiences of her family and others, including people of color.
“The more people we meet, especially people of color, the more we learn about these experiences. It’s really disappointing,” the resident said.
