Shane Kohfield stood outside the home of Portland’s mayor in July wearing body armor and a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, a large knife strapped to one shoulder and a copy of his concealed weapons permit displayed on the other.
Using a loudspeaker, he warned the right-wing activists who turned out to condemn the city’s handling of recent violent demonstrations that they needed to protect themselves against their anti-fascist, or antifa, rivals.
“If antifa gets to the point where they start killing us, I’m going to kill them next,” Kohfield, 32, said. “I’d slaughter them and I have a detailed plan on how I would wipe out antifa.”
That threat pushed the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task to take a series of extraordinary steps against Kohfield, including temporary seizure of a cache of his firearms under Oregon’s new “red flag” law aimed at preventing gun violence, The Oregonian/OregonLive has learned.
The task force also had the ex-Marine committed to a veterans’ hospital in Portland. He spent the next 20 days there.
The moves came as city officials and law enforcement prepared for potentially violent clashes Aug. 17 during a right-wing rally and counterprotests planned in downtown Portland that had become inflamed with incendiary political rhetoric nationwide. Police worried that they would end in catastrophe.
Though Kohfield wasn’t accused or charged with any crimes, police took no chances and prevented him from attending the rally as he repeatedly had promised to do on social media after his confrontation at Mayor Ted Wheeler’s house. READ MORE: