Cory Elia is a journalist based in Portland, Oregon. He is managing editor of Village Portland, [1] a volunteer reporter and podcast host at KBOO. [2]
Cory Elia is a journalist based in Portland, Oregon. He is managing editor of Village Portland, [1] a volunteer reporter and podcast host at KBOO. [2]
Elia's footage has been used for national-level coverage, including regarding the August 2019 assault on Andy Ngo [3] [4] and the August 2020 New York Times and Washington Post coverage of the Killings of Aaron Danielson and Michael Reinoehl. [5] [6]
Elia says he was injured multiple times by police while covering the George Floyd protests in Portland, Oregon. By mid-June, he was on separate occasions pepper-sprayed and beaten with police batons. [1] On June 2, after police struck Elia several times, causing his head to strike a concrete wall, Elia sought treatment at a hospital. Following the incident, police denied that video coverage of the event depicted what Elia described. The incident was referred to the Independent Police Review board. Police argue that media were told to leave the area following a declaration an unlawful assembly was declared, a position that the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists strongly opposes and calls an unlawful restriction. [7] Oregon News coverage of the striking of a pedestrian by a truck during a September 2020 protest, [8]
On 30 June, Elia and two other independent reporter, Lesley McLam and Justin Yau, were arrested while covering the protest. A video taken by Elia just prior to arrest shows Elia telling an officer that Elia recognized him from a previous night of protests. A group of police shortly thereafter rushes Elia, pushes him down, and arrests him. [2] On July 1, the Oregon Speaker of the House, Tina Kotek, lambasted the Portland Police Bureau in an open letter, referring among other things to the arrests of Elia and two other independent journalists. [9] Following the arrest, a district court placed a two-week restraining order on the Portland police, barring them from arresting, using force against, or seizing recording equipment and press passes from journalists and legal observers. The decision noted that police chose to arrest Elia and the two other journalists after they were made aware of their press credentials. [10] Later that month, Elia and McLam filed a suit against the city, the second of at least three suits filed against the city on behalf of journalists that month. [11] [12] On June 3, Elia said that on account of exhaustion and seizure of his equipment, he would no longer cover the protests. [10]
Now age 33–34, Elia lived his early life in southeastern Portland, Oregon. In the mid-2010s, Elia worked for FedEx. After a major back injury, Elia began self-medicating with marijuana. Due to the drug's illegal status in Oregon at the time, Elia was fired from FedEx, leading to homelessness and a methamphetamine addiction. [13] Elia describes coverage of homelessness as a major aspect of his journalism. [14]
After three years of homelessness, Elia received housing and entered recovery. In 2018, he was a junior at a local college and spent time volunteering. [13] Elia was a 2020-21 Portland State University's Student Media Board member. [15]
Edward Tevis Wheeler is an American politician who has served as the mayor of Portland, Oregon since 2017. He was Oregon State Treasurer from 2010 to 2016.
Antifa is a left-wing anti-fascist and anti-racist political movement in the United States. It consists of a highly decentralized array of autonomous groups that use both nonviolent direct action and violence to achieve their aims. Most antifa political activism is nonviolent, involving poster and flyer campaigns, mutual aid, speeches, protest marches, and community organizing. Some who identify as antifa also combat far-right extremists and, at times, law enforcement, with tactics including digital activism, doxing, harassment, physical violence, and property damage.
Patriot Prayer is a far-right group founded by Joey Gibson in 2016 and based in Vancouver, Washington, a suburban city in the Portland metropolitan area. Since 2016, the group has organized several dozen pro-gun, pro-Trump rallies held in liberal cities in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California. Often met with large numbers of counter-protesters, attendees have repeatedly clashed with left-wing groups in the Portland area. Far-right groups, such as Proud Boys, have attended the rallies organized by Patriot Prayer, as well as White nationalists, sparking controversy and violence.
Joseph Owan Gibson is an American right-wing activist and the founder of the far-right group Patriot Prayer which has organized protests in Portland, Oregon, and other cities, primarily within the Pacific Northwest.
Rose City Antifa (RCA) is an antifascist group founded in 2007 in Portland, Oregon. A leftist group, it is the oldest known active antifa group in the United States. While anti-fascist activism in the United States dates back to the 1980s, Rose City Antifa is the first to adopt the abbreviated moniker antifa. Since 2016, Rose City Antifa is one of the nine chapters of the Torch Network coalition.
Andy Cuong Ngo is an American conservative journalist, author, and right-wing social media influencer known for covering and video-recording demonstrators. He is the editor-at-large of The Post Millennial, a Canadian conservative news website. A regular guest on Fox News, Ngo has published columns in the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal.
On May 19, 2020 and November 3, 2020, elections were held in Portland, Oregon, to elect the mayor.
The End Domestic Terrorism rally, sometimes subtitled "Better Dead Than Red", was a far-right demonstration organized by the Proud Boys and held in Portland, Oregon on August 17, 2019. The event, the purpose of which was to promote the idea that the "antifa" anti-fascist movement should be classified as "domestic terrorism", received national attention. The rally drew more counter-demonstrators than participants—with at least one group urging its members in advance not to attend—and ended with the Proud Boys requesting a police escort to leave.
Cider Riot was an American cider producer with a cider house in the Kerns neighborhood in Northeast Portland, Oregon, from 2016 until November 2019.
Robert Evans is an American author, journalist, and podcast host who has reported on global conflicts and online extremism. A former editor at the humor website Cracked.com, Evans now writes for the investigative journalism outlet Bellingcat while working on several podcasts, including Behind the Bastards, Behind the Police, Behind the Insurrections, It Could Happen Here, The Women's War, and Worst Year Ever. In 2021 he published his first novel, After The Revolution, in a serialized podcast.
The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of international reactions to the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man who was murdered during an arrest after Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis Police Department officer, knelt on Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds as three other officers looked on and prevented passers-by from intervening. Chauvin and the other three officers involved were later arrested. In April 2021, Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. Chauvin was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison with possibility of supervised release after 15 years for second-degree murder in June 2021.
Starting in May 2020, demonstrations over the police murder of George Floyd were held in the city of Portland, Oregon, concurrent with protests in other cities in the United States and around the world. By July 2020, many of the protests, which had been held every day since May 28, drew more than 1,000 participants. Protests continued into August, September, and October 2020, often drawing hundreds.
Local protests in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area quickly spread nationwide in more than 2,000 cities and towns, as well as over 60 countries internationally in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. In Minneapolis, destruction of property began on May 26, 2020, with the protests involving vandalism and arson. Demonstrations in many other cities also descended into riots and widespread looting. There was police brutality against protesters and journalists. Property damage estimates resulting from arson, vandalism and looting ranged from $1 to $2 billion, eclipsing the highest inflation adjusted totals for the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
In June 2020, the Trump administration began deploying federal law enforcement forces to select cities in the United States in response to rioting and monument removals amid the George Floyd protests. Federal law enforcement elements were deployed under Operation Legend, Operation Diligent Valor, and the Protecting American Communities Task Force (PACT). The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cited an executive order regarding "monuments, memorials and statues" as allowing federal officers to be deployed without the permission of individual U.S. states, as the federal government "has the right to enforce federal laws, investigate crimes and make arrests" within states.
On August 29, 2020, Aaron Danielson, an American supporter of the far-right group Patriot Prayer, was shot and killed after participating in a pro-Trump caravan which drove through Portland, Oregon, displaying banners and signs supporting President Donald Trump, and clashing with participants in the local George Floyd protests.
John Earle Sullivan, also known as Activist John, is an American political activist and self-identified photojournalist who participated in the 2021 United States Capitol attack.
A 4 foot bust of York, the only African American on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, was installed in Portland, Oregon's Mount Tabor Park, in the United States, from February to July 2021. The artist stayed anonymous at first, but after the bust was removed he revealed himself as Todd McGrain. McGrain was a student of Darrell Millner, Portland State University professor of history and Black Studies. The bust appeared on February 20, replacing the statue of Harvey W. Scott, which had been toppled on October 20, 2020. McGrain did not seek city permission to install the bust, which McGrain expected to be temporary; on June 11 the city announced that it would remove the bust.
Since its foundation in 2016, members of the Proud Boys, a far-right, neo-fascist, and exclusively male organization, have been involved in a number controversial and violent events. This list contains a number of those events, some of which have resulted in criminal charges being filed against participants.
On June 24, 2021, a woman posted a video to Instagram in which she had confronted staff at Wi Spa, a Korean spa in Los Angeles, about the ostensible presence of a nude individual with a penis, most commonly believed to be a trans woman, in the women's section of the spa. The video went viral, attracting significant attention from trans-excluding feminists online and right-wing media, which led to protests and counter-protests on July 3 and 17 over the alleged access. Some media initially questioned whether the alleged incident had been a hoax.
Tusitala Toese also known as Tiny, is an American right wing political activist. He is a leader of the Proud Boys, a far right group that engages in political violence in the United States. Toese was a key member of the Portland area far right group Patriot Prayer, prior to joining the Proud Boys. He has faced multiple criminal charges for violence at rallies.