‘Straight to Gunshots’: How a U.S. Task Force Killed an Antifa Activist

New accounts from the scene raise questions about whether Michael Reinoehl, suspected of killing a far-right Trump supporter, pulled out a gun before officers fatally shot him.

By Evan Hill, Mike Baker, Derek Knowles and Stella Cooper

• Published Oct. 13, 2020

In interviews with 22 people who were near the scene, all but one said they did not hear officers identify themselves or give any commands before opening fire. In their official statements, not yet made public, the officers offered differing accounts of whether they saw Mr. Reinoehl with a weapon. One told investigators he thought he saw Mr. Reinoehl raise a gun inside the vehicle before the firing began, but two others said they did not.

Mr. Reinoehl did have a .380-caliber handgun on him when he was killed, according to the county sheriff’s team that is running a criminal homicide investigation into Mr. Reinoehl’s death. But the weapon was found in his pocket.

An AR-style rifle was found apparently untouched in a bag in his car.

Five eyewitnesses said in interviews that the gunfire began the instant the vehicles arrived. None of them saw Mr. Reinoehl holding a weapon. A single shell casing of the same caliber as the handgun he was carrying was found inside his car.

Garrett Louis, who watched the shooting begin while trying to get his 8-year-old son out of the line of fire, said the officers arrived with such speed and violence that he initially assumed they were drug dealers gunning down a foe — until he saw their law enforcement vests.

“I respect cops to the utmost, but things were definitely in no way, shape or form done properly,” Mr. Louis said.

The U.S. Marshals Service declined to comment for this article, citing the pending investigation. The agency previously said that it had attempted to “peacefully arrest” Mr. Reinoehl and that he had threatened the lives of law enforcement officers.

President Trump, who has described the racial justice protests that have roiled the nation as the work of lawless criminals, praised the operation.

“This guy was a violent criminal, and the U.S. Marshals killed him,” the president told Fox News. “And I will tell you something, that’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution when you have crime like this.”

‘That shot felt like the beginning of a war’

Mr. Reinoehl had joined protesters in Portland in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing by the Minneapolis police in May, writing online that they were waging a necessary war with the potential to “fix everything.” He devoted himself to the Black Lives Matter movement and once touted himself as “100% ANTIFA all the way.”

Mr. Reinoehl, a 48-year-old contractor and professional snowboarder, had run into trouble with the law in June, when he was cited for driving under the influence of a controlled substance and having an unlicensed firearm in the car. Later, during the protests, the police arrested him and cited him for carrying a loaded firearm in a public place, but prosecutors dropped the charges.

When the protests against the police got underway in Portland, he carved a niche for himself providing security, watching for agitators. After a caravan of supporters of Mr. Trump arrived in Portland on Aug. 29 and began clashing with the protesters, a security camera showed Mr. Reinoehl keeping an eye on one of them — Aaron J. Danielson, a supporter of the far-right group Patriot Prayer who was walking with a can of bear repellent and an expandable baton.

Seconds later, a separate livestream video captured Mr. Danielson being shot, and The Oregonian newspaper reported later that Mr. Reinoehl was under investigation in the case. In an interview while he was in hiding that Vice News broadcast on Sept. 3, Mr. Reinoehl said he had fired in self-defense. “That shot felt like the beginning of a war,” he said.

Police officers guarding the area where Aaron J. Danielson was killed in Portland on Aug. 29. Mr. Reinoehl was a suspect in the shooting.Credit...Mason Trinca for The New York Times

A quiet night and a sudden raid

On the day the interview aired, officers with the U.S. Marshals’ Pacific Northwest Violent Offender Task Force met for an intelligence briefing.

The team, which included a mix of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, already knew that Mr. Reinoehl was staying in a brick complex of apartments in Lacey, Wash. The task force had information from an informant, passed on by the Portland police, about Mr. Reinoehl’s location and possession of firearms, said Lt. Ray Brady of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office, who leads the team investigating Mr. Reinoehl’s death.

Though the Portland police had yet to issue a warrant for Mr. Reinoehl’s arrest, the task force prepared to move in.

That evening, outside the apartment complex where the police say Mr. Reinoehl had been staying, the neighborhood was quiet.

Mr. Louis, a carpenter and former U.S. Army medic, watched his son ride his bike with his younger brother and a neighborhood friend. Around the corner, Chad Smith and two friends, Chase Cutler and Jon Chastain, were wrapping up an afternoon spent working on cars.

Mr. Reinoehl left the apartment and walked toward his Volkswagen, parked along the street roughly 100 feet away. Two officers positively identified Mr. Reinoehl, who proceeded to start the car, said Lieutenant Brady, who shared some of the initial findings of the investigation with The New York Times. They decided to make an immediate arrest, the officers told investigators, in part to avoid a high-speed chase.

Mr. Smith said he and his friends turned their heads to the sound of a vehicle accelerating rapidly, headed southbound toward the street where Mr. Reinoehl was walking. A second law enforcement S.U.V., which had been parked across from Mr. Smith’s house, moved in with such speed that the friends thought they were witnessing a road rage incident or a gang shooting.

Mr. Smith and Mr. Cutler ran after the unmarked S.U.V.s, watching as they turned onto Mr. Reinoehl’s street, one cutting the corner and speeding over the grass.

Nate Dinguss, who according to Lieutenant Brady lived in the apartment where Mr. Reinoehl was staying, said Mr. Reinoehl was chewing a gummy worm as he approached his station wagon, with a phone in one hand and a bag in the other.

Mr. Dinguss said in an interview that officers began jumping out of the vehicles before they had come to a complete stop, and that one of them opened fire immediately, before any commands had been given. Another man who was walking his dog nearby said that a burst of about 10 gunshots began almost immediately after the S.U.V.s came to a halt, and that he did not recall hearing any commands. Mr. Louis, who was on the other side of the scene, some 140 feet from Mr. Reinoehl, also said the police opened fire immediately, without giving any warnings — as did Mr. Smith and Mr. Cutler.

“There was no, ‘Get out of the car!’ There was no, ‘Stop!’ There was no nothing. They just got out of the car and started shooting,” Mr. Louis said.

Mr. Smith described it similarly: “There was no yelling. There was no screaming. There was no altercation. It was just straight to gunshots.”

Investigators at the scene where Mr. Reinoehl was killed by law enforcement in Lacey, Wash., in September.Credit...

Ted S. Warren/Associated Press

Of the 22 people interviewed by The Times who said they were near the shooting when it occurred, only one man reported hearing any shouting before the gunshots began.

That man, Quentin Gruner, whose apartment is about 75 feet away, said he was letting his dog out when he heard shouting that he thought was neighbors having a fight, followed by a popping noise.

The four officers who were riding in the S.U.V.s said in their statements to Thurston County sheriff’s investigators that they shouted “Stop! Police!” before opening fire, Lieutenant Brady said.

But the officers gave conflicting stories about what led them to begin firing. One reported that he saw Mr. Reinoehl, inside the vehicle, raise “what they perceived to be a gun,” Lieutenant Brady said. Two other officers said they only saw Mr. Reinoehl make “furtive movements” toward the center console, he said.

Lieutenant Brady said the first shots appear to have struck Mr. Reinoehl inside the vehicle, and videos of the aftermath show bullet marks in the driver’s side of the windshield. Though apparently wounded, Mr. Reinoehl began moving away from the officers on foot.

In an updated account released on Wednesday, the Sheriff’s Office said Mr. Reinoehl “continued to reach around his waistband and was attempting to manipulate his firearm.”

Officers continued to fire, and as Mr. Reinoehl stepped into the street from behind a nearby truck, a final burst took him down, Lieutenant Brady said. He most likely died immediately, said the Thurston County coroner, Gary Warnock.

Officers also offered conflicting accounts of those final shots. One said that Mr. Reinoehl, while in the street, pointed a gun. Other officers said he appeared to be trying to “retrieve” one from his pants pocket.

In their updated statement, sheriff’s investigators said that as officers searched Mr. Reinoehl’s body, they found a gun in his pocket. His hand was on it, they said, as he fell to the ground.

The aftermath

In all, four officers fired 37 rounds from two rifles and two handguns, the investigators said.

A visit to the scene by a reporter, as well as videos and photos from the aftermath, showed that at least eight of the officers’ bullets struck civilian property.

Angel Romero, who lives directly adjacent to the shooting, said at least five bullets hit a brick wall and a wooden fence at his home. One traveled through an exterior wall and passed above his dog kennels and through his dining room — narrowly missing his brother before lodging in a kitchen wall. Mr. Romero’s neighbor found a smashed bullet in his backyard grass.

“They literally found ricochet bullets where my kid was,” Mr. Louis said.

Lieutenant Brady said it would be several months before lab results determined whether the shell casing found in the Volkswagen matched the handgun found in Mr. Reinoehl’s pocket, and it may never be known whether it was fired that day. There is no evidence that Mr. Reinoehl touched the rifle found in the bag in his car, the chief investigator said.

Mr. Reinoehl fell to the asphalt near a set of mailboxes after a final burst of gunfire from officers.Credit...

Ted Warren/Associated Press

None of the officers said they saw Mr. Reinoehl fire his handgun, and investigators have found no other evidence that suggests he did. Investigators found no .380 bullets or casings outside the vehicle.

In the aftermath, some news accounts quoted witnesses describing Mr. Reinoehl firing shots. One of them, Mr. Smith, said he was misquoted. Another woman also described Mr. Reinoehl firing shots, but in another account said that she was not present when the shooting began. Mr. Cutler said he heard a pistol that he thought might have been Mr. Reinoehl’s firing first, but Lieutenant Brady said the officers fired pistols as well as rifles.

Six minutes after the shooting started, Jashon Spencer, a resident of the apartment complex, began filming a live video from the scene. In it, roughly eight and a half minutes after Mr. Reinoehl was likely killed, an officer could be seen beginning chest compressions on Mr. Reinoehl’s motionless body. They were undertaken almost perfunctorily, from a standing position, and soon ended.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/us/michael-reinoehl-antifa-portland-shooting.html