The Antifa terrorist who assassinated a Trump supporter in Portland, Oregon, won’t murder anyone else.
Police officers with a U.S. Marshals task force killed Michael Forest Reinoehl late yesterday during a gunfight in which dozens of rounds were fired. Reinoehl was wanted for the murder of Aaron J. Danielson, a member of Patriot Prayer, on Saturday.
Reinoehl had confessed to killing Danielson in an interview with a freelance journalist.
The Gunfight
Police secured a warrant for Reinoehl’s arrest early yesterday, then found him hiding in an apartment complex in Lacey, Washington, about two hours north of Portland.
But Reinoehl, a putative “security” officer for Antifa who would, supporters told the New York Times, often “de-escalate” an explosive situation, escalated the situation last night. He walked out of the apartment about 7:30 p.m., the Oregonian reported, tried to flee, and attacked police:
He ran to a station wagon parked outside the complex, Thurston County Sheriff’s Lt. Ray Brady told The Oregonian/OregonLive. Officers trying to stop him fired rounds into the car, Brady said.
The wagon was boxed in by officers’ cars, prompting Reinoehl to run. He produced a gun and officers fired again, Brady said. Reinoehl died at the scene, his body lying in the street.
As many as four-dozen shots were fired after Reinoehl attacked police, witnesses told the Olympian:
Chad Smith and Chase Cutler, who were working on cars nearby Thursday, said an unmarked SUV had been parked on School Street for a while when that SUV and another converged on a man in a vehicle at the apartment complex. Smith and Cutler moved onto a grassy area about 50 yards away to watch what was happening.
The man got out of his vehicle and began to fire what they believe was an assault rifle at the SUVs. They said they heard 40 or 50 shots, then officers returned fire, hitting the man.
“It reminded me of a video game,” Cutler said.
Reinoehl Confesses
Before police cornered and killed the terrorist, he confessed. “You know, lots of lawyers suggest that I shouldn’t even be saying anything, but I feel it’s important that the world at least gets a little bit of what’s really going on,” the killer told a Vice journalist. “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.”
Reinoehl claimed that hateful Trump supporters who ran a caravan through the city were threatening left-wing “protesters.” Reinoehl was only there to help:
Reinoehl stressed that people participating in the pro-Trump caravan were heavily armed in those trucks, and that they carried “not just paintball guns,” as reported in the press.
He found himself in a confrontation with a man who he says threatened him and another protester with a knife. “Had I stepped forward, he would have maced or stabbed me,” Reinoehl said….
Bystander video from multiple angles show a man who resembles Reinoehl and appears to have the same neck tattoo fire two shots at Danielson and then walk away.
“I was confident that I did not hit anyone innocent and I made my exit,” he said.
Since the shooting, Reinoehl said he’s gone into hiding, and moved his children to a safe place after shots were fired into his house just hours after the incident. “They’re out hunting me,” he said. “There’s nightly posts of the hunt and where they’re going to be hunting. They made a post saying the deer are going to feel lucky this year because it’s open season on Michael right now.”
He had not turned himself in, he said, because he believed right-wing protesters were collaborating with police, who will not protect him or his family.
Reinoehl is not, as Vice reported, an Army veteran.
“Mr. Reinoehl said in his social media posts that he was once in the Army, and hated it, although an Army official said no record of service could be found under his name,” the Times reported.
Why Didn’t He Surrender
Reinoehl’s attacking police was not the action of an innocent man.
On Instagram, Reinoehl wrote that he was completely committed to Antifa and its terrorist activities:
I am 100% ANTIFA all the way! I am willing to fight for my brothers and sisters! Even if some of them are too ignorant to realize what antifa truly stands for. We do not want violence but we will not run from it either!
Unlike Reinoehl, Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot and killed two Antifa-Black Lives Matters attackers in self-defense in Kenosha Wisconsin, turned himself in to police.
As well, video posted at multiple websites speculates that Danielson was the victim of a coordinated hit in which Reinoehl was the shooter.
Photo: Chalabala / iStock / Getty Images Plus
