Activists’ occupation of a blocks-long stretch of North Portland continued for the fourth day Friday morning, enduring in the wake of news that the owner of the house at the center of the controversy has offered to sell the property.
The real estate investor who bought the “Red House on Mississippi” for $260,000 through a foreclosure sale in 2018 has offered to sell the property back to the former owners — a Black and Indigenous family who had lived there for decades — at cost.
An online crowdfunding effort has raised nearly that sum, surpassing its $250,000 goal. Some 5,000 people have donated to the GoFundMe, titled “Save The Kinney Family Home.”
The antifa Red House autonomous zone continues to grow as it is now in its fourth day. Militants continue to build new border check points further and further out to buffer the area. The zone is now three blocks long. Graphic: Oregonian pic.twitter.com/ND86ZXjrld
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) December 11, 2020
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, meanwhile, has said that he hopes to negotiate a settlement to end the demonstrations at the site, which protesters have occupied since the summer in an attempt to block efforts to remove the Kinney family.
The occupation ramped up Tuesday after Multnomah County sheriff’s deputies and Portland police officers arrived to “re-secure” the home for its owner.
But police, hoping to avoid further inflaming the situation, left the scene quickly after intense clashes with protesters. That gave activists the opportunity to take over the house and surrounding area.
Portland Police chief: “We are aware of the stockpile of weapons and the presence of firearms.”
Chief Lovell asks those at the Portland antifa autonomous zone to voluntarily leave & put down their weapons. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/zVJajW0nuw
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) December 10, 2020
Now the occupation zone is nearly three blocks long.
Activists have stacked wooden boards, corrugated metal sheets, nail-studded spike strips, tires, fences and accumulated an arsenal ranging from glass bottles to rocks in the tightly-packed residential neighborhood.
Law enforcement officers have not intervened since officers left Tuesday. And experts say a peaceful resolution demands intense negotiations between the city, the new owner of the house and the family, with help from any community leaders who might hold sway.
People didn’t believe me when I warned antifa weren’t going to be pacified if Trump lost the election. Now police are unable to reclaim territory in a major US city & are asking public to simply avoid the area. https://t.co/fLi7XPBMvz
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) December 10, 2020
City officials have been in talks with the Kinney family who used to own the house, as well as the new owner who has offered to sell the house back at cost and the separate owner of adjacent land.
“To try to have a negotiated settlement is critically important,” said Frank Straub, a former Spokane police chief and now director of the National Police Foundation’s Center for Mass Violence Response Studies. “But they also have to recognize that the situation over time becomes dangerous from a public health and public safety aspect.”
If a resolution is reached, the family must urge the activists to leave, Straub and others said.
If a resolution isn’t forthcoming, city officials must speak publicly about what they’ve done to try to end the conflict and explain the need to clear the unlawful blockade of public streets, the outside experts said.
In the event police are told to remove the blockade, they may seek an element of surprise to minimize the potential confrontation.
Experts said what’s occurred on the avenue is not a crowd control matter, but is a barricaded occupation, which could activate Portland’s Special Emergency Reaction Team.
They likely would issue dispersal orders and possibly carve out an exit path allowing people to leave safely, the observers said.
If others refuse to leave, then police could start a coordinated attempt to remove barricades, and tactical officers, seeking protection behind heavy vehicles, could move up and “slowly, surgically … dissemble the blockade,” Straub said.
— Jeff Manning, Maxine Bernstein and Jim Ryan
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How much do you want to bet that this home has already been nearly destroyed by the squatters?
I wouldn’t bet, but the squatters are supposedly the people who have lived there for decades and want to remain….even though the property was foreclosed and they have no legal claim to anything.
Having typed that I do know of people who have had vehicles repossessed and effectively destroyed them before they were taken back.
The whole thing stinks fro every angle. How many homes and jobs have been lost due to this Chinese viral assault?
What makes it a realistic belief that the people who are living in the house but couldn’t afford to pay their mortgage or upkeep will now be able to do so when the new owners sell it back to them?
THEY WON’T have to. “Crowd funding” has raised enough money, to outright buy it for them.
It will be interesting to watch where the money goes.
We won’t ever find out i doubt.
I wonder, if these LOUTS GET allowed to pull this off, HOW MANY MORE HOMES will get squatted in, and then rioters form a barrier around, to prevent their being evicted??
America has watched these radicals for the last few months, rioting, looting, burning buildings and now taking over properties and I’m supposed to believe they then in turn voted for this ??
I do not believe this. This election was in fact stolen. There is no way America voted for THIS !!
YET court after court, IS PRACTICALLY ENDORSING That outright theft.
this will go on till a end is put to it, understand!
All i know, with the SHEER contempt i have for our ENTIRE judicial system right now, heaven help any judge, that i get to see, if i ever get called for jury duty. I DON’T CARE HOW Much ******* evidence the DA’s present, i will NEVER vote to CONVICT a single person