A jury in Portland, Oregon, has found Antifa defendants not liable for violent attacks, after their attorney declared to the jurors in court that she would “remember each one of their faces.”
The trial pitted The Post Millennial’s Andy Ngo in a civil case against members of Rose City Antifa. Ngo had filed a complaint in Portland in 2020 against the group. He charged certain members with various acts of violence beginning in 2019, and sought nearly $1 million in damages.
The defendants in this civil case were John Colin Hacker and Elizabeth Renee Richter, whom Ngo accused of assault, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
As the trial began, The Post Millennial tweeted about Hacker’s history with Ngo, saying that “on May 7, 2019, Hacker allegedly threw an unknown liquid onto Ngo at a local gym, then forcibly robbed Ngo, taking his phone.” The tweet says gym staff had to intervene to retrieve the phone, and Hacker’s gym membership was later revoked.
The week-long civil trial ended Tuesday, after which Ngo tweeted that the “court was played video showing Antifa defendant Elizabeth Renee Richter threatening to beat me worse that what I suffered in the June 2019 Antifa attack in which I suffered a brain hemorrhage & nearly died. The jury saw video of her rallying comrades & pointing me out at the Nines Hotel in downtown Portland.”
He also tweeted that “the court learned that co-defendant John Hacker admitted to identifying me to another person verbally, shortly before I was accosted & then chased & beaten by black bloc Antifa militants.”
Hacker admitted in court that “one of his primary jobs is to ‘identify right wingers’ that infiltrate events.” Ngo had already testified that he wore the characteristic black garb of Antifa militants to conceal his identity for safety reasons while reporting that day.
According to a Post Millennial tweet, Ngo was reporting on Antifa attacks on the Portland Justice Center and Police Central Precinct when Hacker approached and identified him.
Above is some of the video that the jury saw of the May 28, 2021 incident. (There is some profanity in the audio.) Ngo said he heard participants yell, “That’s Andy! Get him! Get him!” They chased and beat him. He was able to get away and seek refuge in The Nines hotel. Ngo says that Elizabeth Richter was among that group, and she followed him into the hotel before the staff escorted her out.
She and the other Antifa members lingered outside, calling Ngo’s name, beating on the windows, and yelling obscenities and threats for some time afterward. The video shows that when they opened the front doors, security prevented any of them from entering the building.
It’s not the first time Antifa has come after Ngo.
On June 29, 2019, while covering a Proud Boys rally in Portland, Ngo was attacked by counterprotesters whom he identified as Antifa. He said that the encounter sent him to the hospital. (Again, there is profanity in this audio). The people attacking Ngo repeatedly yelled his name, telling him to leave.
Though the protesters obviously singled him out and ganged up on him, Vox painted a different picture of the incident. An article by Zack Beauchamp claims that “Ngo is not an innocent victim but a far-right sympathizer who has doxed antifa members in the past, potentially facilitating their harassment, and provokes them so that he can broadcast the result.” He identifies Ngo’s “grift” as “funneling money” to his crowdfunding Patreon platform and 200,000 Twitter followers.
Beauchamp also quotes Charlotte Clymer, press secretary at the LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, as condemning violence and bemoaning the altercation. But, she said, “I’m also not going to pretend that this wasn’t Ngo’s goal from the start.” (The article notes that Ngo is homosexual.)
Regardless of Ngo’s intentions, the video clearly shows horrifying brutality against him. And while pundits may be disgusted with the outcome of the case, they aren’t all that surprised. According to The Post Millennial, the judge mentioned various jurors’ safety concerns about being “doxed” themselves. As if to emphasize the danger, defense lawyer Michelle Burrows declared in her closing statement, “I am Antifa,” and told jurors that she “will remember each one of their faces.” She excused the group’s use of violence, saying that “resistance in this country has never been peaceful.”
As a footnote to the story, Post Millennial reporter Katie Daviscourt, who was covering the trial, left after the verdict to discover all her car windows shattered and items stolen. With no absolute proof, she suspects Antifa is to blame because, she says, some members threatened her inside the courthouse, too.
