By Deborah Bloom and Andrew Hay
PORTLAND, Ore. (Reuters) - Police shot and killed a self-declared anti-fascist activist in Washington state on Thursday night as they moved in to arrest him on suspicion he fatally shot a right-wing counterprotester last weekend in Portland, Oregon, officials said.
Michael Reinoehl, 48, wanted on a murder charge, was armed with a handgun when members of a U.S. Marshals Service fugitive task force shot him dead in Olympia, Washington, after he left an apartment building and got in a car around 7:30 p.m., according to the Marshals Service and the Thurston County Sheriff's Office.
"During the attempt to apprehend him, shots were fired at the suspect in the vehicle and he fled from the vehicle on foot. Additional shots were fired at the suspect and he was later pronounced deceased at the location," the Thurston County Sheriff's Office, which is responsible for investigating the incident, said in a statement.
A Multnomah County, Oregon court had charged Reinhoel with the murder of Aaron Danielson, and Portland police issued a warrant for his arrest, asking U.S. marshals to locate him.
"It sounded like fireworks, it was that many shots," bystander Jashon Spencer said in an online video.
Reinoehl, who had provided security for Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, in a video interview with Vice aired hours before his death appeared to admit he shot Danielson on Saturday night.
Danielson, 39, was part of a caravan of supporters of Republican President Donald Trump who rode in pickup trucks into downtown Portland and clashed with protesters demonstrating against racial injustice and police brutality.
This marks the first case in which the Justice Department has directly linked a demonstrator in Portland to a far-left political movement.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Oregon confirmed that none of the defendants from those protests facing federal charges had been linked to any particular group or political ideology.
"The tracking down of Reinoehl - a dangerous fugitive, admitted Antifa member, and suspected murderer - is a significant accomplishment in the ongoing effort to restore law and order to Portland and other cities," U.S. Attorney General William Barr said in a statement. "The streets of our cities are safer with this violent agitator removed."
Nationally, Antifa is a largely unstructured, far-left movement whose followers broadly aim to confront those they view as authoritarian or racist.
Danielson, a Portland man who ran a specialty moving company in the city for over 20 years, was a supporter of right-wing Christian conservative group Patriot Prayer.
Facebook Inc (O:FB) on Friday said it took down the pages of Patriot Prayer and group founder Joey Gibson, whose supporters have clashed with anti-fascists in Portland every weekend since mid-August.
"They were removed as part of our ongoing efforts to remove Violent Social Militias from our platform," Facebook said in a statement.
Portland has seen escalating confrontations between right- and left-wing groups after nearly 100 days of protests since George Floyd, a Black man, died in Minneapolis on May 25 after a white police officer knelt on his neck.
'NO CHOICE'
Reinoehl told freelance journalist Donovan Farley he acted in self-defense.
"I had no choice. I mean, I, I had a choice. I could have sat there and watched them kill a friend of mine of color. But I wasn't going to do that," he said in the video Farley provided to Vice News, adding he feared he would be stabbed.
Bystander video showed two men approaching Danielson and a friend, one saying "Hey, we got one over here, we got a couple over here," and another "Pull it out," before two shots were fired.
“I was confident that I did not hit anyone innocent. And I made my exit,” Reinhoel said in the Vice interview.
He was previously cited for carrying a loaded gun at a July 5 Portland protest, resisting arrest and interfering with police, according to The Oregonian newspaper. The charges were subsequently dropped, the newspaper reported.
In social media posts Reinoehl, a father of two, described himself as a professional snowboarder, an Army veteran and "100% ANTIFA."
He said he was prepared to fight to change the "course of humanity."
"It will be a war and like all wars there will be casualties," he said in a June 16 Instagram post.