PORTLAND, Ore. — An arsonist cut through the fence of the gated back lot of a Portland Police Bureau training facility and began setting fire to cop cars. The destruction — occurring in the early morning of May 2 — was brazen: The assailant set fires that engulfed 17 vehicles, including one that grew into a fireball near a large propane tank, before fire crews arrived to douse the flames.
Even days later — as PPB cops on motorcycles zipped through turns of training course created by orange cones in the lot — the stench of charred plastic hung in the air. The hole in the fence had been patched, but damaged vehicles remained lined up beside the warehouse-size training building, located in an industrial zone near the airport. A few police SUVs showed melted driver-side tires. Other cruisers had gaping holes burned through their fenders. And several cop cars were just charred husks of naked metal.
Conflict between Portland Police and far-left activists is commonplace in this city, which former President George H.W. Bush once dubbed “Little Beirut” because of the tenacity of its protests. However, the burning of more than a dozen police cars — on police property no less — marks a jarring escalation in tactics. So does a claim of responsibility posted to a Portland anarchist web forum, by an anonymous group calling itself “Rachel Corrie’s Ghost Brigade.” The statement connected the arson attack to support of a pro-Palestinian occupation at the Portland State University library, and called for violent resistance against police. “Let ten million cop cars burn!” it declared.
A Portland Police spokesperson tells Rolling Stone PPB is “aware” of the post “claiming responsibility for the fires,” adding that “the post is part of the investigation.” A spokesperson for the FBI office in Portland would not “confirm or deny” that the feds have joined the investigation but said the FBI is also aware of the incident. If the claim of responsibility matches reality, it could mark the arrival of a new wave of what the government deems “Anarchist Violent Extremism,” a form of dangerous left-wing extremism that mirrors the threats posed by far-right militia movements and anti-government groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.
Portland Police Bureau
Portland emerged as the epicenter of nightly protest in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd because demonstrators saw PPB as an avatar of the kind of violence-forward policing that led to Floyd’s death. PPB has been under Department of Justice supervision for more than a decade, with the feds attempting to rein in a pattern and practice of excessive force.
The 2020 protests against police brutality saw activists goad the cops into crackdowns that showcased their predilection to violence. PPB’s pervasive use of force against protesters was decried as unconstitutional by DOJ; the police’s use of tear gas inspired a damning report by international war crimes investigators; and probes of the cops have since surfaced police training materials that celebrated the bashing of “dirty hippies.”
Property destruction was a feature of the nightly actions in 2020, but it was, in the main, opportunistic and nuisance-making, e.g.: breaking windows or painting anti-cop graffiti. Fire was occasionally used by agitators — but it was most often contained to a trashcan or a dumpster in a display of burning rage rather than a credible effort to burn down buildings.
The claim of responsibility for setting fire to the PPB vehicles has not been independently verified. It was posted to Rose City Counter-Info, an anarchist website that bills itself as run by “an anonymous collective.” The site has been active since the fall of 2020, touting itself as “a secure and anonymous radical content-hosting platform” specific to “so-called Portland” — a home for “reports, analyses, communiques, announcements, calls to action, art and musings relevant to radicals and anarchists.” The site has posted zines about the anarchist actions as well as how-to guides for “Troublemakers.”
The site has sometimes been viewed with skepticism — with one leftist Twitter account observing it “seems like a ridiculous front for right-wing bad actors posing as anarchists” — but Rose City Counter-Info has also been cited as a credible resource in academic papers on Portland anarchists. Rolling Stone messaged the site asking how or if they vetted the arsonist claim and did not hear back.
The statement, posted May 6, celebrated a “Preemptive… attack against PPB.” It reads in part: “On May Day we torched some PPB cars at their training facility. We cut through a fence, set ten fires and are happy it grew to burn fifteen cars!” (PPB’s initial count of damaged vehicles was 15.) The statement said the arson was meant to impede an expected police sweep of a pro-Palestine student-led occupation of the Portland State University library. “After seeing Humboldt, Columbia, UCLA, and more,” the statement said, “we knew the occupation at PSU would be swept violently and wanted to attack PPB before.”
In addition to taking responsibility for the fires, the statement included a call to violence, urging student occupiers to “FIGHT!” to defend their encampments: “If the frat bros come, smash their frat house windows! If the Zionist settlers come, throw fireworks at them!” It added: “If the cops come, don’t just resist arrest, fight them!… it is time to be violent.” The statement concluded with a call to “avenge Palestinians and the brutalized students at PSU and beyond!” It added: “Let ten million cop cars burn!”
Alexander Ross is a PSU professor who researches extremist movements and political violence. He was cautious to weigh in on the statement given the “evolving situation,” but said from his reading of the document, “I doubt it was some kind of false flag.”
He characterizes the attack on the police training center as “a very big escalation” — even from the more extreme acts of the 2020 protests and riots. The way that the manifesto not only claimed responsibility for the arson but connected it to the campus protests, he argues, could easily open up charges of terrorism and conspiracy for those responsible. And it will almost certainly increase tensions between cops and street activists going forward.
The PSU library occupation was cleared by police on the morning of May 2. Occupiers reportedly created considerable damage to the school library building, but not to its collections. The library will not open again until fall. Portland Police arrested 30 individuals, at least a half dozen of whom were PSU students, and are searching for more than a dozen others who fled the building. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, who doubles as the police commissioner, blasted protesters as “delusional” for believing their actions could influence the conditions on the ground in the Middle East.
PPB said no one is in custody for the crime. It refused to release surveillance camera footage of the attack. The manager of a family business that neighbors the PPB training facility showed Rolling Stone a repaired cut in the fence at the back of his property, where the arsonist appears to have gained entry to the police lot. (His own surveillance footage only captured the reflection of flames and flashing emergency lights, he said.)
The arson against cop cars and the claim of responsibility have made headlines not only in Oregon but also in Israel — where it has been covered by the Jerusalem Post and the Times of Israel. The invocation of the name of Rachel Corrie has proven provocative to audiences both in the Pacific Northwest and in Israel.
Corrie was an American peace activist from Washington living in Gaza in 2003. She attempted to prevent an armored Israeli Defense Force bulldozer from destroying Palestinian homes, which the IDF claimed were being used by militants. Corrie was crushed and killed by a bulldozer operator, who later insisted he did not see her.
Some far left groups have been excited by the branding. The Connecticut chapter of the John Brown Gun Club — a far-left gun rights group inspired by the anti-slavery radical who attempted to seize an armory at Harper’s Ferry — wrote on X: “Rachel Corrie’s Ghost Brigade is an incredible moniker. May we all live righteously enough to be worthy of such a namesake.”
Corrie’s parents, by contrast, have been taken aback. “It’s just wrong,” Corrie’s father Craig told reporters: “They’ve co-opted Rachel’s name for use they would never, ever have approved of.”