AP Photo/Noah Berger
A Portland resident who is black and lives downtown a
block away from the Justice Center thought the nightly protests had been
completely peaceful. Then he attended one and had a rude awakening.
Gabe Johnson, a 48-year-old black man who served in the
Marines, now says that Portland police should use any means necessary, including
force, to sweep the riots off the streets and end the nightly violence.
In an interview with PJ Media, Johnson said he considers
himself a patriotic American, and that the United States flag should be a
symbol of unity for all Americans. He laments how some have turned it into a
symbol of racism and division, especially in Portland.
Last Saturday night and into Sunday morning, Johnson says
he was in bed trying to sleep, but the noise kept him awake. He counted 82
explosions disturbing his sleep. Then, with his air conditioning running and
bringing in air from outside through the vents, he was suddenly immersed in
tear gas from the street below. That’s when he decided to take action.
“You know, so I literally stood up and just yelled,”
Johnson said in the interview. “‘Oh my God,’ I actually yelled. ‘Oh my effing
God.’ It was just like somebody has to do something. I don’t know what that
something is. I didn’t at that time, but I knew something had to be done and I
figured I would just sleep on it.”
The next day he went down around noon to the ongoing
protests in front of the Justice Center to hang a couple of American flags on
the fence and start a dialogue with some of the protesters.
“When I woke up in the morning,” Johnson said, “it was
clear as day, almost like it was just planted in my head. This is what you’re
going to do. Hopefully we can start a conversation. Here we are now we are
starting this conversation. But I can tell you the experience was eye-opening.
I did not believe what I used to call the rhetoric about antifa. I was thinking
that maybe they’re just, you know, some punk kids or whatever it was, some
righteous anger in there. I quickly found out that that’s not the case.”
Having worked for the State Department after an
eight-year career in the Marines, Johnson has done a lot of duty overseas. He
says the antifa rioters in Portland use the same tactics he’s witnessed from
terrorists. “They’re utilizing the same tactics that any other terrorist
organization would,” Johnson said. “They’ve got spotters with cameras that will
follow you around, and they’ve got their thugs. Those are the guys with the
baseball bats. They have people that will intimidate you in Black Lives Matter
attire.”
Johnson says his goal was to try to convince Portland
protesters to stop tearing America apart, and to start bringing it together.
“What is more patriotic than our flag?” he said. “What will really just be in
your face, America? This is America, right? I wanted to have a conversation so
that they would understand that what they’re doing is tearing the country apart
and not bringing it back together, and hopefully by telling this community that
we live in it’s time to start a conversation and it’s time to unite America.
Because the Black Lives Matter movement has turned into something else. Antifa
has attached itself to this movement now and it’s taken it over.”
It’s important to note that Johnson is no fan of Donald
Trump, and is not a conservative. He considers himself a moderate. He also
considers himself a patriot who is tired of watching America come apart at the
seams. When he went to the protest, he did not encounter other patriots, but he
did encounter protesters who aren’t from Portland.
“It’s beyond me how they can sit there and say that
they’re not causing damage or rioting,” he said. “It’s a riot, and it’s real,
and when you are on the front line and you’re looking back into that crowd, it
is an angry mob that is built on doing as much destruction as possible.”
“Unfortunately, 90% of the people don’t look like me, but
99% of the people that I talk to don’t even live in Portland,” he added. “If
you are down here at one of these movements or one of these protests, one of
the things you’re going to notice is there’s a lot of out-of-state license
plates. People are very brazen about the fact that no, they’re not from here.”
When he went down to the protest with his flags, Johnson
expected to talk to people. He didn’t expect to be assaulted. Several people
stole his flags and stomped them on the ground. One older black man, around 65
years old, grabbed one of the flags and handed it back to Johnson. A protester
promptly punched the man in the face and ran off.
Reminder: This all took place in broad daylight, not at a
late-night riot.
Johnson says protesters called him a coon, Uncle Tom, and
the n-word—”with the -ER, not -a.” He has done several interviews this week
because he wants the world to know that when leaders say that the federal law
enforcement officers have caused the riots, and that the protests are largely
peaceful, that’s a lie.
Jeff Reynolds is the author of the book,
“Behind the Curtain: Inside the Network of Progressive Billionaires and Their
Campaign to Undermine Democracy,” available at www.WhoOwnsTheDems.com.
Jeff hosts a podcast at anchor.fm/BehindTheCurtain. You can follow him on
Twitter @ChargerJeff, and on
Parler at @RealJeffReynolds.
