NEWS
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK
THE BIG NUMBER
VA L E R I E Y E R M A L
TOM BERRIDGE
WANTED
Tusitala “Tiny” Toese The political brawler may have violated his probation, by brawling. BY TE SS R I SK I
tess@wweek.com
THE WARRANT: Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Benjamin Souede on June 23 signed a warrant for the arrest of Tusitala “Tiny” Toese, a right-wing brawler on probation for an assault conviction. Toese punched a man in the face on a Northeast Portland sidewalk on June 8, 2018. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault in January. As a condition of Toese’s probation, Multnomah County Circuit Judge Kathleen Dailey barred Toese in January from attending protests for two years. Now, the the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice says Toese may have violated his probation. “We have initiated a warrant for his arrest,” DCJ senior manager Lisa Lewis tells WW. “The warrant is based on alleged violations of supervision.” The department initially filed the warrant request in Multnomah County Circuit Court on June 18, court records show. WHAT HE ALLEGEDLY DID: Lewis declined to say what event incited the arrest warrant, but reports from the past month provide clues. Earlier this month, video surfaced of Toese, 24, appearing to shove, grab and drag a protester in Seattle’s autonomous zone. WW also learned of a separate incident June 4 in which Toese and three other men surrounded a man at a Black Lives Matter protest. The man filed a complaint with Toese’s parole supervisors the next day. The protester, named Zach, declined to use his last name for fear of retaliation. But WW confirmed with law enforcement that he relayed the allegation to DCJ the day after the incident occurred. Zach says he was at Southwest 4th Avenue and Taylor Street in downtown Portland at about 11 pm on June 4 when he saw Toese with three other men. He says he recognized Toese, who is 6 feet tall and Samoan. “I looked up, and Tiny was staring a hole through my 6
Willamette Week JUNE 24, 2020 wweek.com
head,” Zach says. “I thought this could go one of two ways: He could sucker punch me, which he’s known for, or he could let it go.” Toese and the three other men gathered around Zach, he says, but backed off. DCJ spokeswoman Jessica Morkert-Shibley says Toese’s parole officer in Washington state “addressed” the June 4 Portland incident, and that it was not the inciting incident for the arrest warrant. That suggests he’s wanted for the Seattle encounter, or for something else entirely. WHY IT MATTERS: Since the 2016 election of President Donald Trump, Toese became among the best-known figures associated with the conservative protest group Patriot Prayer and the right-wing men’s organization called the Proud Boys. For years, he attended Portland protests, engaging in fistfights with antifascist demonstrators. In February 2019, WW published a story examining Multnomah County prosecutors’ failure to charge Toese with assaulting an antifascist protester named Tim Ledwith in 2018, despite eyewitness accounts and Ledwith’s cooperation with law enforcement (“A Tiny Problem,” WW, Feb. 20, 2019). Nine months after the assault, prosecutors obtained an indictment against Toese, which resulted in his conviction. During his January sentencing hearing, Toese vowed to turn over a new leaf, renouncing the nickname Tiny and the violent confrontations associated with that persona. “But as for me, I’m Tusitala. No more Tiny. There’s no more big boy Tiny. No more Samoa prowler in the streets, this and that. It’s just Tusitala Toese who I was born and created by God to be,” Toese said during the hearing, according to a report by Oregon Public Broadcasting. The warrant appears to signal Toese is backsliding from his promise of pacifism. When he returns to Multnomah County—whether by arrest or to turn himself in—Toese must have a probation violation hearing before a judge, Morkert-Shibley says. For now, Toese’s whereabouts remain unknown.
$166,785 That’s the value in losses, mostly to theft, that 25 licensed cannabis retailers reported to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission from looting related to protests of police brutality. About half of that total came from two stores: Serra’s downtown location at 220 SW 1st Ave. ($47,833) and Farma at 916 SE Hawthorne Blvd. ($33,498). And most of the looting occurred in one night—May 29—as crowds dispersed by police smashed windows and raided store shelves across downtown. Portland liquor stores suffered fewer losses—about $43,000 from four stores. Most of the damage came at the OLCC licensed store at 925 SW 10th Ave., which suffered losses of $35,000. Three of the four liquor stores hit, according to the OLCC, are owned by people of color. None of the principals of the most affected stores could be reached for comment. Some of the looting appears to have little direct relation to the downtown protest and subsequent riot, and instead looks like crimes of opportunity while police were otherwise occupied. The Farma dispensary, for example, which suffered the second-biggest cannabis loss, is across the Willamette River and 10 blocks up Hawthorne from the Multnomah County Justice Center, where the riot began. Two of the liquor stores that got hit are Pearl Liquor ($2,736 in losses) at 900 NW Lovejoy St. and Hollywood Liquor ($2,700) at 3028 NE Sandy Blvd., far from the Justice Center downtown. NIGEL JAQUISS.
