NR spoke with people who were among the hundreds arrested while rioting in Portland. Here's what we found.
Sporting an open wound near his right eye after he was shot in the face with a pepper ball, Camillo Massagli put his trumpet to his lips in late July and blew the tune to the Portland protesters’ anti-police chant.
“Take it to the streets, and (expletive) the police. No justice, no peace.”
Better known to protesters in Seattle and Portland as “the Trumpet Man,” Massagli, 26, with his long blonde hair and a goatee, has been a fixture at demonstrations over the last five months.
A young Camillo learns the trump under the instruction of his great grandfather. (Andy Massagli)
He was a garden tender in the CHAZ – the short-lived Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle. He blew his trumpet in the face of federal agents in Portland this summer, and he made the news when a cop with a bicycle ran over his head as he lay protesting in the road.
To many demonstrators, the Trumpet Man is something of a protest celebrity, a true believer in their left-wing revolution who posts anti-government musings on his Instagram page.
To many opponents of the demonstrations, which often turn violent, the Trumpet Man deserves to get a canister of tear gas shot into the bell of his horn.
But to Andy Massagli, the Trumpet Man is a more complicated figure: He’s Andy’s oldest son who is so smart that he dual enrolled in college courses at 16 and went to work in a molecular biology lab. He’s a natural leader and performer who used to sing Frank Sinatra tunes at weddings and was taught to play the trumpet by his great grandfather.
Camillo with his father Andy in Yosemite National Park (Andy Massagli)
He’s also a young man who has struggled with mental illness, said Andy Massagli, 49, a former Republican candidate for the state House in Washington.
Before the demonstrations began, Camillo Massagli seemed to be turning his life around, his dad said. But for five months now he’s been in a manic state, driven by the constant agitation.
“I love him,” Andy Massagli said of his son. “And I’m worried as hell.”
Camillo Massagli is one of several hundred people who have been arrested in Portland since late May, when demonstrations and riots broke out nationwide in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, who died in police custody in Minneapolis.
Massagli also has been arrested several times in Seattle, his hometown.
In a seven-page statement, Massagli acknowledged his mental-health struggles, his history of psychotic breaks, and his mania, which he has fed with cannabis, alcohol and psychedelic drugs. But he said he is proud of his “revolutionary activities.”
Antifa Riots?
Trump has called for Antifa — a loose organization of far-left radicals who often use anarchist tactics in their fight against what they see as fascism creeping into every corner of society — to be labeled a terrorist organization.
To better understand who’s actually participating in the Portland riots and protests, National Review reached out to demonstrators who were arrested during a two-week period in late August and early September, and combed through dozens of their social media profiles.
The findings: People participating in the riots are not all Antifa members, though there clearly are Antifa supporters in their ranks. Police say some of the most dangerous demonstrators are skilled at not being identified and avoiding arrest.
None of the protesters who spoke to National Review said they self-identify as Antifa, though they all said they consider themselves against fascism generally.
And while the protests may have been sparked by renewed calls for racial justice, it’s clear that many of the protesters have other driving motivations.
Among the people arrested during the two-week period were the co-chairs of the Portland Democratic Socialists of America who wrote on Facebook that the protests were “about the total abolition of policing, the prison industrial complex, and the racist capitalist system that needs them to function.”
Another protester published a series of anti-capitalist and pro-Antifa memes on Facebook, including a photo of wildland firefighters wearing black masks and holding an Antifa flag.
An indigenous activist whose been arrested at least six times posted a photo of herself on Twitter next to a statue of Teddy Roosevelt, which was torn down during the so-called “Indigenous Day of Rage.” She regularly posts videos of alleged police brutality, and said she films in part “because the Black community wants us to gather evidence for law suits (sic).”
But many of the people who’ve been arrested in Portland don’t present themselves as radicals, or even come across on social media as overtly political. They include a 53-year-old Portland mom, whose Facebook page is mostly filled with messages of affection for her husband and daughters, and a 35-year-old dad who primarily posts pictures of his kids playing sports.
For some protesters, their participation has driven a wedge between them and their families.
Tayler Hansen, an independent conservative journalist who went to Portland to document the unrest and was himself arrested in early September, said he’s witnessed demonstrators starting fires in buildings, throwing Molotov cocktails in the streets, smashing windows, looting businesses and throwing projectiles – even balloons filled with human waste – at police.
Hansen, 20, said most of the people who participate in the demonstrations share a similar anti-establishment, radical left-wing ideology, though they come from different backgrounds and represent different movements – socialists, Marxists, anarchists, trans activists, Black Lives Matter activists. Almost all are anti-police and anti-Trump, he said.
But Hansen, who left Portland shortly after he was attacked and beaten by four men dressed in black, said a lot of the people he met are “just normal people.”
“You see that they’re just somebody looking to belong to something. That’s what I’ve noticed,” Hansen said. “They want to belong to something bigger than themselves. They want to be part of a movement.”
Devoting his Life to the Revolution
In mid-September, during a rally in a suburban park near the home of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Camillo Massagli draped himself in an American flag marked with “revolutionary messages” written by his “comrades.”
“I’m not really into a violent civil war, as much as it might be impending,” he said. “Shooting my neighbors is not something I’m really interested in. But maybe just a couple well-placed rounds or even slices of the guillotine. Now that’s something I’m a little more interested in, guys.”
He wondered what UFOs would think about the “monkeys with shoes who get real upset about things real easy.” He railed against raping Mother Earth, and said we’re all born into a war.
It was a disjointed, scattershot piece of dorm room philosophy delivered like a sermon by a young, charismatic white man who’s become a prominent preacher for this protest movement.
While the protests were supposed to be focused on racial justice, Massagli doesn’t focus much of his preaching on race. In fact, in his video in the park he said he doesn’t really “buy into the race war.” He’s focused on “the class stuff” that he said seems “pretty relevant and real.”
In his statement to National Review, he said racism is one powerful method of control. Black Lives Matter is just on part of a revolution fighting a global order that perpetuates murder, rape, torture and genocide, according to Massagli. As an inspiration, he cites the work of leftist historian Howard Zinn, who viewed the U.S. as evil and exploitive.
Massagli now believes he’s rising up against powerful elites as part of a “global slave rebellion” but he insists he wasn’t looking to be a leader in the revolution. He just kind of stumbled into it when he was living in downtown Seattle.
“I became radicalized and educated and realized this is the revolution, and devoted my life completely to it,” he said on a video from early September posted on his Instagram page.
Andy Massagli, a former sheriff’s deputy, said he is disappointed that his son has become a leader in a radical and sometimes violent anti-police movement, but he’s not surprised. His son is smart, charismatic, and a natural leader – a pied piper. He’s also a troubled man, he said.
He said his son grew up in a middle-class home, first in California and later in Washington.
Camillo was the “golden child” growing up, smart, precocious and family-oriented, the kid his band teacher put in charge of the class if he was sick.
Andy Massagli said his son grew up in a conservative home, but it wasn’t radically conservative. As a teenager, Camillo became interested in Republican politics. He considered himself a libertarian, and read books by the free-market economist Ludwig von Mises.
“He was all about Ron Paul. He loved Ron Paul,” Andy Massagli said, referring to the libertarian congressman from Texas who gained something of a cult following during his 2008 and 2012 runs for the Republican presidential nomination.
Andy Massagli said he only ran for a state House seat after his son brought him to a Republican Party meeting. But his son didn’t stick around for his unsuccessful campaign.
After Camillo’s mom died and his mental illness was diagnosed, he fled to Alaska, the first of many trips where Camillo wandered the globe looking for freedom, his dad said.
Camillo said he escaped out of his bedroom window, fleeing his home and a father he describes as “authoritarian” and now a “Trump devotee.”
Before the protests erupted in May, Camillo was doing well, his dad said.
Andy Massagli said Camillo has cut off contact with him and now calls him a neo-Nazi. To keep tabs, he said, he secretly monitor’s his son’s social media, and looks for him in the news.
He hopes Camillo will get back into a mental-health program, and worries what will happen if he doesn’t. He believes protest leaders are taking advantage of his son’s mental illness.
“I’m pretty sure some day I’m going to watch him die on YouTube,” Andy Massagli said, “and it’s going to be followed by a bunch of laugh emojis.”
Camillo said he’s now sober, recovering in the Arizona desert, and rededicating himself “to the movement for freedom in the most wide-reaching and effective way I can, not just as a wild front-line brute.”
Doing Something to ‘Change the World’
In the days after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, Peter Curtis took to Facebook to organize an online watch party for SpaceX’s first crewed rocket launch.
Earlier in the month, Curtis cheered on an upstart electrical car manufacturer, and vowed to “devote a good portion of my life and time” to promoting the concept of “public domain.”
Curtis wrote a lot on Facebook about science and NASA, along with concerns about the economic impact of the coronavirus lockdowns in the Pacific Northwest, and an occasional post supporting Bernie Sanders’s presidential run. It was mostly mundane and nerdy stuff.
But since late May, Curtis, 40, an unemployed IT worker, has been a regular at the Portland protests, and has been arrested at least four times on charges of interfering with an officer and disorderly conduct.
In a Facebook picture, Curtis is smiling, with neatly trimmed black hair and a goatee.
Curtis now identifies as a trans-woman, and she said she has legally changed her name to Tabitha Poppins. (National Review is identifying her as Poppins and using female pronouns at her request).
In a photo posted online, Poppins is at a protest holding a makeshift shield and wearing a short, pink skirt and a purse slung over her shoulder. On her Tabitha Poppins Facebook page she’s wearing a blue dress and a gas mask, and is holding a picture of George Floyd that reads “silence is violence.”
In an interview, Poppins said she considers herself an enlightened pacifist and “kind of a bridge” between skeptics of the demonstrations and the more radical elements of the movement.
Poppins is not a member of Antifa, she said, but she’s against fascism. And she considers Antifa to be “absolutely” a force for good, in part because Antifa provides resources to demonstrators.
Poppins admits she wasn’t a regular protester before Floyd’s death, but knew she wanted “to do something to change the world.”
Poppins compared the Portland demonstrations to the Boston Tea Party. She thinks almost everyone in the country is exploited and oppressed. She thinks it isn’t cool to be a member of either the “crooked” Republican or “dirty” Democratic parties, and suggests the biggest threat facing the country is “late-stage capitalism.” Socialism, she said, “it’s literally the way.”
“We’re all going to end up extinct. Homo sapiens are on the way out,” she said. “This economy and all that (expletive), throw it all out.”
Poppins said she doesn’t like some of the optics of the protests, such as people throwing Molotov cocktails, looting and trying to start buildings on fire, because it only helps Trump. But, she said, “it’s stupid to get our panties in a bunch” over damage to insurable property.
Poppins said there needs to be more unity among the various factions of protesters about what they ultimately want to accomplish. Poppins said she’d be happy with abolishing the Portland Police Bureau, or at least requiring mandatory body cameras. Like other demonstrators who spoke with National Review, Poppins said she believes the real violence at the protests is committed by police officers. “They’re the terrorists,” Poppin said. “That’s the truth.”
Like Massagli, Poppins’s protesting has further divided her from her family.
Poppins’s mom, Mary Ellen Curtis, said in a phone interview that Poppins is very smart, and was reading college-level text books in the fourth grade.
But she said Poppins has struggled with mental health since childhood. Poppins had a tendency to set herself up for anger and violence. Raising her was “very difficult,” Mary Ellen Curtis said.
Mary Ellen Curtis said Poppins snapped a few years ago after a family trauma.
Poppins said Mary Ellen Curtis’ allegations are not accurate, and that Mary Ellen Curtis is the one with mental-health issues. She said she hasn’t spoken to her mother in over a year – before COVID-19 and before the protests – and wants to keep the focus on the movement.
Similar to Massagli, Poppins grew up in a conservative, Christian home, said Mary Ellen Curtis, a Trump supporter and small-business owner. Poppins said she grew up listening to Rush Limbaugh and pounding yard signs for Republican politicians with her parents.
Mary Ellen Curtis said her other children have mostly cut ties with Poppins, whom they consider their brother. When asked about her relationship with her parents and siblings, Poppins would only say “it is what it is.”
Mary Ellen Curtis said she would like her child to get help, but she’s tired.
“With Peter, I’m worn out,” she said. “We’ve done this our entire life.”
Nothing Threatening?
Flip-flops, capri pants, a bike helmet and a bright yellow shirt: that’s Joy Wilson’s protest outfit.
Wilson, 45, was a member of the so-called “Wall of Moms,” a group of mostly white women who attended the protests and linked arms to form a barrier between protesters and police.
“I don’t make a point of looking ominous or dangerous,” said Wilson, a single mom of two. “I don’t go dressed for war, because I want it to be very clear that there’s nothing threatening about my presence.”
Wilson, who is in the advertising industry, said she attends the protests to support the Black Lives Matter movement, and to show the world that the demonstrators aren’t all extremists. She protests most nights when she doesn’t have her kids, she said.
“I believe showing up specifically as just some quote, unquote average mom is really important because of the misconception that it is a bunch of violent protesters or the black-clad rioters,” she said.
Jaimie Crush, a Portland area college student of Vietnamese descent, said she participates in part because she is against police brutality, but also because she wants to encourage conversations among older members of the Vietnamese-American community, many of whom are Trump supporters.
Neither Wilson nor Crush identify with the Antifa movement, though both said they consider themselves to be against fascism. “What American isn’t, unless you’re a neo-Nazi,” Wilson said.
Neither woman identifies as an anarchist, either.
“Anarchy isn’t very useful, in my opinion,” Crush said. “You can’t have mob rule.”
Both are women of the Left. Crush, who believes in either abolishing the Portland Police Bureau or defunding it, said she’s aware that’s “pretty super far left” position. Wilson said she doesn’t feel her politics are extreme, but conservatives would probably view her as on the extreme Left.
According to the Portland Police Bureau, the nightly demonstrations have been officially declared riots 28 times since May 29. Rioters have thrown rocks and bricks at officers, shot commercial-grade fireworks and mortars at them, and aimed lasers into their eyes, according to police. They’ve also torn down statutes, smashed windows, sprayed graffiti on buildings, looted businesses and attempted to set buildings on fire.
Wilson said she’s seen some of that – mostly small fires set in the road, protesters throwing eggs and half-filled bottles of water at police, some graffiti. But it’s not as bad as its been portrayed in the media and by police, she said.
“People are taking their anger out. Is this the most mature way? No,” she said. “But I have no judgment for that.”
Wilson insists the police are the violent ones. She said she raised her kids to approach police officers and thank them for protecting the community. The police response to the protesters has been far too aggressive, she said.
Wilson was arrested in early September on a charge of interfering with a peace officer. She said she didn’t do anything wrong. She said she was on the sidewalk, when she identified by an officer she’d had a verbal dispute with a couple of nights earlier.
“If they want to make an extremist out of me, they’re doing a really good job,” she said. “I can tell you, the way the police have treated me, I can say I fear fascism in our own country.”
Crush was arrested in early September too. She admits she didn’t leave an area in the city after police declared a riot. She said she was exercising her First Amendment rights.
“You can call that rioting if you want,” she said. “I wasn’t violent. I was just walking. And they tackled me to the ground.”
When asked if she thinks the protests have been successful, Wilson said “yes and no.” Everyone’s talking about racial justice, she said, and she’s happy police officers are no longer patrolling Portland public schools.
But there’s still a lot of work to do rebuilding the police bureau, Wilson said. She tries not to use extreme terms, like talking about abolishing the police, because it can turn people off. But she does think policing in the United States “needs to be started from scratch,” she said.
She said she supports the goals of the Portland African American Leadership Forum, which has a series of demands, including defunding the police and reinvesting into “black futures.”
“Until these things become important to our elected officials and prioritized, yeah, these protests will continue,” Wilson said. “And as long as police officers continue to kill black people, these protests will continue.”
