Update, September 26:
After publishing this story, the Mercury received more information about the referenced text messages between Gibson and Outlaw from PPB spokesperson Kristina Jones. Jones wrote the following in an email:
“Chief Outlaw told me she has not texted Joey Gibson. I spoke with Lieutenant Niiya and we are assuming this is stemming from the transcript of his interview where he says he was texting Joey and the Chief. Lt. Niiya clarified to me that did not mean there was a three way text group between them, rather, he was texting Joey and then separately he was texting the Chief.”
Original story:
A newly released city interview with a Portland Police Bureau (PPB) officer raises the question of whether PPB Chief Danielle Outlaw has ever communicated with Joey Gibson, leader of the far-right Vancouver, Washington based group Patriot Prayer. Though PPB denies any exchanges between Gibson and Outlaw, the interview transcript suggests otherwise.
On Thursday, Outlaw and Mayor Ted Wheeler announced that an investigation led by the Independent Police Review, a branch of the city auditor’s office, had cleared Lieutenant Jeff Niiya of any wrongdoing. Niiya was under investigation after text messages between him and Gibson—which were obtained by the Mercury and Willamette Week through public records requests and published in February—raised the question of if Niiya had been overly friendly with or protective toward Gibson and his fellow Patriot Prayer members.
After announcing IPR’s findings, the city released a trove of documents used in the investigation, including a transcript of an interview between Niiya and IPR investigator Andrea Damewood. (Full disclosure: Damewood writes food and drink reviews for the Mercury, but does not have any involvement with our news reporting.)
Their conversation is wide-ranging, and at one point they discuss the nature of police liaison work. Niiya makes the point that it’s common for police liaisons to communicate with people who could potentially pose a danger to officer or public safety, and also asks that IPR look “for improvements in the process” of both how PPB’s liaisons are trained and how they do their jobs. Niiya then says this:
“What has happened with me and how can we do better because when the chief of police knows—our current chief of police is someone else that knew about my text messages. There’s text messages that you have between me and the chief and Joey, so when the highest level of people in this organization are aware of things, they need—they need to understand that there is a chain that everyone’s held accountable and that we need to do better around this.”
Niiya appears to be saying two things here: both that Chief Outlaw was aware of the texts shared between Niiya and Gibson, and that she participated in some of those text conversations.
When reached for comment via email, PPB spokesperson Brad Yakots told the Mercury, “I can confirm that Chief Outlaw never had communication with Joey Gibson.”
Yakots declined to comment on why Niiya would make the remark about “text messages that you have between me and the chief and Joey” if Outlaw has never communicated with Gibson.
At a Thursday press conference announcing the results of the investigation, both Outlaw and Wheeler referred to “11,000 text messages” that would be released as part of the investigation documents. After the press conference, PPB sent out a clarifying press release stating that only texts “which were relevant to their investigation” would be included in the documents, rather than all 11,000 messages.
The Mercury has submitted a public records requests for any communications between Gibson and Outlaw.
Why is anyone surprised that the police are in bed with the white supremacists? The cops ARE the white supremacists. They are the government sanctioned, taxpayer funded modern day lynch mob. Fuck them.
Wow Christina. Those sound like the sweeping generalizations of a rebelling-out 13 year old. Congrats!
@JTR
Christina is correct. Hell, the force has a fucking nazi on it to this day.
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2010/10/portland_police_panel_finds_ca.html
Wow, @2, that sounds like the condescending, meaningless comeback of a senile 80-year-old. Salutations!
Hey Beans, who exactly has Patriot Prayer killed? You claim PP has killed 4 people, which is an outright lie, and I challenge you to provide one shred of evidence to support your lies. Race has exactly zero to do with any of this also. PP is not a white supremacy group. Joey is Japanese, for crying out loud. The mental gymnastics required to believe what you claim are astonishing. Yes, wheeler needs to go, as does the actual nazi cop. The rest of them need to be allowed to do their jobs and arrest antifa every time they break the law. THAT will do more to make Portland beautiful again than anything else they could do. It would end the violence for sure.
There are known neo-nazi groups courted by Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys. I was sceptical how bad these groups are at first but it is undeniable.
The last rally here was attended by known neo-nazi groups. They might be grown out their hair but the leader of “the league” has been a hardcore neo nazi for decades and brags about it. I grew up learning that you are defined by the people you surround yourself with. If you are marching with a Nazi, well then, you have no room to breathe in an argument about where your politics stand.
And, remember Charlottesville? These were proud little boys and “the league” and many other internet sewage runoff groups who visited here last weekend. “Not-sees” as the proudly ignorant rubes claim? Well, the rest of the world saw a match of neo-nazis larger than this country has seen in decades
If your group had any integrity they would have cancelled their rally on the anniversary of the Jeremy Christian murders. Instead you went forward, illustrating the sociopathic philosophy (whatever that is) of the gang you are affiliated with. And it is a gang. Nothing more.
8: It doesn’t matter what Joey Gibson’s ethnic/racial identity is-what matters is that he and his group identify with a fascist narrative: the myth that heterosexuals, evangelical “Christians” and those who identify as “patriots” have somehow been oppressed in this country, and that the only way that those groups can free themselves from oppression is to be able to intimidate everyone who isn’t a heterosexual “Christian” “patriot” into either hiding from Patriot Prayer in mortal terror or leaving. It is all a despicable lie: Nobody in this country is persecuted for displaying evangelical Christian faith, or for displaying “patriotism”, or for being heterosexual. And the ability of those who are not straight, white, “Christian” or “patriotic” to live their lives freely and on their own terms, and to walk through the streets of Portland and other towns without fear of intimidation or violence is not, in any sense, a threat to anyone who does fit Joey Gibson’s spiteful, narrow-minded and paranoid definition of who counts as a “real American”. If you don’t like Antifa, you need to find some way of standing up to Patriot Prayer, and the “Proud Boys”(what the hell have they got to be proud OF, btw? Most are jobless thirty year-old virgins living on microwaved burritos in Mom’s rec room)-get rid of the “fa”, and there’s no need for the Antifa.
Portland pigs always protect the nazis.