Tusitala Toese

Last updated

Tusitala John Toese
Tusitala "Tiny" Toese.jpg
Toese in 2017
Born (1996-06-04) June 4, 1996 (age 27)
NationalityAmerican
Other namesTiny
Known formember of Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer
Criminal charges
  • Second-degree assault with a weapon (x2)
  • Third degree assault (x2)
  • Unlawful use of a weapon (x2)
  • Riot (x2)
  • First-degree criminal mischief (x2) [1]
Criminal penalty95 months in prison [2]
Criminal statusIncarcerated at Snake River Correctional Institution [3]

Tusitala John Toese (born June 4, 1996) [4] also known as Tiny, is a convicted felon. [5] He is a member [6] [7] [8] of the Proud Boys, a far-right group that engages in political violence in the United States. He was, and still is, a member of the Portland area far-right group Patriot Prayer, prior to joining the Proud Boys [9] [7] and has been convicted of multiple criminal charges for violence at rallies. [10] [11]

Contents

Activities

Toese at a Patriot Prayer rally in Seattle, Washington in 2017 Seattle MayDay 2017 (33571562234) cropped.jpg
Toese at a Patriot Prayer rally in Seattle, Washington in 2017

Toese, a resident of Vancouver, Washington [12] became involved with the far right group Patriot Prayer in 2017. [13] He is originally from American Samoa. [14] [5] [15] Toese, a friend of Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson, punched a man in the face during a Portland, Oregon rally in Chapman Square on May 13, 2017. [4] [16] Described as "a regular presence at alt-right events in Portland throughout the year", Toese was detained and first cited for a crime at a rally for Patriot Prayer in August 2017. [17] He was then arrested at another Patriot Prayer rally on December 9, 2017, after he struck a counter protester in the face. [18] He was convicted of harassment stemming from the fight at the December 2017 rally in downtown Portland. [10]

Toese is affiliated with both Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys. [16] In January 2018, he led a group of Proud Boys in a counter protest at the 2018 Women's March in Seattle alongside members of Patriot Prayer. [8] The Proud Boys, some wearing shirts that targeted feminists as "parasites of the patriarchy", shouted misogynistic slurs at the women attending the event. [8]

The Southern Poverty Law Center described Toese as Gibson's right-hand man in 2018. [19]

In May 2018, when in the company of several Proud Boys members, Toese was filmed getting into a physical altercation with a teenager at the Vancouver Mall in Clark County, Washington before security officers intervened and separated them. [20]

Toese appeared at a Patriot Prayer rally in August 2018 wearing a shirt printed with "Pinochet was right" and RWDS, [21] shorthand used by the Proud Boys for "right wing death squad". [22] The following month, he traveled to Austin, Texas with Gibson for a "Free Alex Jones" demonstration (an event protesting the removal of Jones, a conspiracy theorist and radio host, from several social media platforms) where police removed Toese after he threatened bystanders. [16]

The BBC reported that by March 2019, Toese had been arrested 18 times, on charges including assault, harassment and disorderly conduct. [23]

Toese was indicted by a grand jury [10] and charged with assault following a June 8, 2018, incident in Portland, Oregon [24] that left a man with "stitches and a concussion". [25] He was arrested on October 4, 2019, at Portland International Airport when returning from American Samoa. [10] He was charged with felony assault. [12]

He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault in January 2020 and was barred from attending protests for two years. [20] In June 2020, Toese was filmed engaging in a fight outside Seattle's Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) zone. [25] [26] [27]

In October 2020, Toese was sentenced to six months in jail for a probation violation [28] related to the 2018 conviction for misdemeanor assault. [29]

Toese was among the speakers at a Proud Boys event in Portland dubbed "The Summer of Love" on August 22, 2021, that ended in a brawl in the Parkrose neighborhood with shots fired in downtown Portland. Proud Boys and anti-fascist counter protesters deployed bear mace and shot paintballs at each other. After they flipped over a white van and smashed the windows out, the Proud Boys including Toese were observed shooting paintballs at people while driving around the suburban, residential Parkrose neighborhood. [30]

Toese was reportedly shot in the ankle during an anti COVID lockdown protest in Olympia, Washington on September 4, 2021. [7] [31]

On September 10, 2021, he appeared at an anti-mask demonstration at Skyview High School in Vancouver, Washington alongside Gibson. [32]

December 2021 arrest and conviction

Toese was arrested in December 2021 in connection with the August rally in East Portland which occurred earlier that same year. [11] He was extradited from Washington to Oregon and charged with three counts of second-degree assault with a weapon, two counts of third-degree assault, two counts of unlawful use of a weapon, two counts of riot and two counts of first-degree criminal mischief in Multnomah County Circuit Court. [33]

Toese was released from county jail on bail around June 8, 2022, and court records from November 15, 2022 allege that he was not returning calls to his pre-trial release officer and had let his GPS ankle monitor go dead. [34]

On March 2, 2023, Toese was found guilty on two counts each of second-degree assault with a weapon, third-degree assault, unlawful use of a weapon, riot and first-degree criminal mischief. One count of second-degree assault was dropped. [1] Under Oregon's Measure 11 guidelines, second-degree assault is a felony carrying a mandatory minimum sentence of five years and 10 months in state prison. [35] On July 21, 2023 a judge sentenced Toese to 95 months in prison. [2] As of August 29th, 2023 he was being held at the Snake River Correctional Institution, with his earliest possible release date set for April 30th, 2030. [3]

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