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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK

TOM BERRIDGE

THE BIG NUMBER

Tusitala “Tiny” Toese

The political brawler may have violated his probation, by brawling.

BY TESS RISKI 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 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.

SAM GEHRKE

Should Wapato Jail Be a Shelter?

In the Aug. 11 special election to fill the seat vacated by the January death of Portland Commissioner Nick Fish, only one candidate supports using the Wapato Jail as a homeless shelter. It’s not the person you’d expect.

The two contenders, former Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith and onetime All Hands Raised executive director Dan Ryan disagree whether the never-used Wapato Jail (now dubbed Bybee Lakes Hope Center) has a role to play in sheltering homeless Portlanders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Smith, a longtime advocate for opening Wapato, suggests looking elsewhere during the pandemic.

Here’s what we asked this week:

As part of its ongoing response to homelessness and the COVID -19 pandemic, the Joint Office of Homeless Services plans to make extensive investments in shelters in the coming year and probably beyond.

Do you favor opening the Wapato Jail as a shelter? If not, why not? If you do, should the public chip in or should the funding remain wholly pri

vate? —Nigel Jaquiss and Rachel Monahan

Dan Ryan: Yes. “This issue is deeply personal to me. My brother Tim died on Portland’s streets because there was no care available to him.

“In the midst of a homelessness crisis, global pandemic, an economic nosedive, along with a long-overdue overhaul of our community safety system, we have to ensure that we are doing everything we can to aid our most vulnerable community members. To be successful, we have to pursue multiple strategies and options. The Bybee Lakes Hope Center—as the former Wapato site is now known—is a model of what is possible when advocates are paired with the funding they need to create the transitional services, care and real hope for those we are currently failing to serve.

“Multi-serviced care centers shouldn’t just be available to the wealthy, like the famous Betty Ford Center. They should be available to all who need them, and when an opportunity for a community partnership like this arises, we should jump at the chance to make progress.

“This is the kind of project that would warrant public dollars as a part of the funding mix, but Bybee Lakes Hope Center has not yet asked for public funding. All they have signaled so far is that they would like an expedited zoning process, which seems more than reasonable.”

Loretta Smith: No. “I have been a vocal proponent of Wapato being one of many other resources we use to transition people off our streets in the past. However, as a matter of public health, congregate shelter is not where we should be focusing our investments to get people off the streets during this crisis. In the same way that the private sector stepped up to make Wapato a possible option where homeless people can transition into more permanent housing, we’ve had numerous hotel owners who have stepped up to provide their facilities to us in order to get members of our houseless community off the streets during this pandemic. I believe centrally located hotels present the best available short-term option for both getting members of our houseless community off the street and addressing their acute health needs.

“In regard to more long-term options, I am interested in using our limited public resources to execute a ‘housing first’ strategy, where we move people off the streets directly into housing and then deal with their socioeconomic and health needs. The average cost of a shelter bed is over $2,000 per month, where the average cost for a one-bedroom apartment in Portland is approximately $1,400 per month. Voters gave us a powerful tool when they approved the supportive services funding ballot measure in May; we should maximize the use and efficiency of that resource by prioritizing a regional housing-first strategy.”

“While we anxiously await a vaccinathat it is setting us up so that we can help hold people accountable. This is, for me, the first time I’m seeing that this can work

VOICES

Where can the city shift its spending to

Markisha Smith create more equitable outcomes? My office does training and professional Portland’s equity director explains what must change. development for the employees. We have our Equity 101, which is a mandatory training employees are supposed to take Three weeks ago, Markisha Smith gave ways in which we center race. That’s great, a speech that struck many observers as although we have some folks who have extraordinary, even by the dizzying stanworked in the city for 10 or 15 years who dards of the past month. have never taken it.

Smith, 44, directs the city of Portland’s We really have to think about how we Office of Equity and Human Rights. On are intentionally and strategically educatJune 3, she stood alongside Mayor Ted ing people, giving them information that Wheeler in City Council chambers, four is going to be useful in the work that they days after protests of the police killing of do every day with the community and with George Floyd erupted into rioting. She themselves. Even with all of that, folks still described the moment bluntly: 400 years have got to do their own work, white folks of oppression had reached its breaking in particular. We’ve been trying to do that point. for them, but that’s emotionally heavy. that gives them an introduction to the tion to protect against the coronavirus, we Has your office’s work with the Portare not looking for a vaccination for racland Police Bureau changed in the past ism,” she said, “because that would mean three weeks? removing power and privilege, acknowlIt always requires more of a stronger conedging the hate that people carry in the nection, more frequent. [The 2020-21 very fabric of their souls for Black folks.” budget reform] is going to change who

Smith now faces the [police] equity a similarly daunting manager reports to. task. She runs an That will really have office, with a $1.3 a tremendous impact million annual budon the way the work get, that is intended is filtered throughto create a more out the bureau. It’s just world inside a l w a y s b e e n l i k e the bureaus of city two or three people government. That removed from the includes the Portchief. That doesn’t land Police Bureau. w o r k . T h e e q u i t y He r w o r k , o f t e n manager really does ignored or misunneed to be part of the derstood, is now in leadership team. the civic spotlight. I’m hopeful that the

S m i t h j o i n e d way training happens City Hall in Februfor police officers ary 2019. Before that, she directed the fundamentally shifts, that is nonnegoequity office at the Oregon Department of tiable for current officers and for anybody Education for six years. Smith says she will who’s coming in. It needs to be tied to always be an educator at heart. performance evaluations. Like, if we’re

In this interview, she gives her assesshaving a training around anti-black racism ment of the current racial climate and the and you’ve gone through a series and your plans her office has to mend it. LATISHA actions in your role don’t match up with JENSEN. the knowledge you should’ve gained, that’s problematic.

WW: What is the biggest misconception about what your office does? You’ve lived in Texas and Michigan. Is

Markisha Smith: When you have an Oregon more racist than those places? office situated like ours is, there is this Less? tendency to just say, “Well, they’ll do it, Oregon is politely racist. Living in the they can fix it.” It’s very easy to deflect to South, you just know. People are very clear our office if there’s anything that comes up about how they feel. It’s the other stuff, about race or disability. We can’t do that the invisible. There are some things that without support and collaboration across happen that are fundamentally steeped in the city. white supremacy, but it takes you a minute Did anything you saw in the past severgoing to tell you that we don’t like you, but al weeks make you reconsider whether we’re going to give hints that we don’t. For your work is effective? me, that feels a little bit more dangerous, Actually, the opposite. This is the first time because you don’t always see it coming. our work has been front and center. It feels You don’t see that until you’re trying to get good. Now the city employees will have Juneteenth as a paid holiday. I’m seeing our work being called out in a way it hasn’t before. It makes me feel hopeful. I think a promotion or navigate a space, and all of a sudden there are these barriers that start coming up. It happens in that way. sometimes. Here, it’s polite. Like, we’re not