Last Friday I wrote about a curious case of arson that happened a police vehicle lot in Portland.
When Portland police arrived at a department training facility to help with a fire on Thursday morning, they found at least 15 patrol vehicles burning.
The Portland Police Bureau is searching for a suspected arsonist who they believe set the cop cars on fire around 1:55 a.m. while the vehicles were parked in a fenced training area, the department said in a news release.
The police said they were investigating but they knew it was arson because they apparently had video of a masked suspect cutting through a fence and then setting the cars on fire.
It seemed likely to me (and I said so) that there was a connection between the arson of the police cars and the police action taking place at Portland State University. Now the connection seems to have been made, not by police but by the arsonists themselves. They confessed to their actions on a Portland anarchist site.
On May Day we torched some PPB cars at their training facility. We cut through a fence, set ten fires and are happy it grew to burn fifteen cars!
We did it for the Haymarket Martyrs.
We did it for all the Black and Indigenous rebels murdered by slavers and settlers.
We did it for all the brutalized student protesters.
Above all we did it for the Palestinian martyrs! (and we want to remind the world that the “official” count is stuck at 35,000 martyrs because the Israelis bombed every hospital to stop accurate reporting of the dead)
Our attack was preemptive. After seeing Humboldt, Columbia, UCLA and more we knew the occupation at PSU would be swept violently and wanted to attack PPB before.
The authors also encouraged the student protesters to get violent.
FIGHT! Defend your camps! If the frat bros come, smash their frat house windows! If the Zionist settlers come, throw fireworks at them! If the cops come don’t just resist arrest, fight them! They will hate you and beat you if you’re peaceful or violent, and it is time to be violent.
The group called itself “Rachel Corrie’s Ghost Brigade” aligning itself with a pro-Palestinian activist who was run over and killed by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003. Police said they were investigating the claims.
Police said in an email that they are “aware of the online post claiming responsibility and that is part of the investigation.”
The bureau wouldn’t confirm whether they’ve heard of a group calling itself “Rachel Corrie’s Ghost Brigade” or whether its claims have any merit.“The investigation into this online incident is open and active,” police spokesperson Mike Benner said in an email. “Detectives do not want to jeopardize the integrity of the investigation.”
Meanwhile, Rachel Corrie’s father, who runs a foundation named for his daughter said she would not approve of the group’s actions.
“I guess there’s nothing I can say to them,” Craig said Monday. “No, it’s just wrong. They’ve co-opted Rachel’s name for use that she would never, ever have approved of.”
It sounds like these creeps aren’t winning any fans. Hopefully police will eventually be able to identify and arrest them.