The Portland Police Chief Who Apologized to Antifa
Portland Police Chief Bob Day is the city's worst police leader yet
In September 2023, retired Portland Police officer Robert “Bob” Day was tapped by Mayor/Police Commissioner Ted Wheeler to lead the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) after DEI hire Chuck Lovell, who is black, abruptly demoted himself. It was the latest chapter in a turbulent era for the Bureau.
Since Antifa’s rise around 2016, Portland has burned through five police chiefs in nine years — each one failing in their own way, though Danielle Outlaw at least publicly dared to criticize Antifa’s routine violence on the streets. She was never forgiven for that and was pushed out of the role in 2019 after serving for just two years.
For years, Portland has suffered from abysmal police leadership — plagued by incompetence, weakness and City Hall’s pro-leftist crime stranglehold. I hoped Bob Day might mark a turning point after the deadly BLM–Antifa riots of 2020. By then, Wheeler himself had moderated after Antifa targeted him and his family. But Day has proven to actually be the worst of the lot.
After retiring as Deputy Chief in 2019, Day launched a DEI consulting firm called Reluctant Change. He ran the business for years before returning to lead the PPB.
“Is your organization wrestling with 21st-century challenges from hiring and retention to understanding DEI or the next generation of employees and customers?” his website asks. That was a red flag — but I gave him a chance.
Then came January 2025. Just days after Trump’s inauguration, Day released a video apology to an armed BLM–Antifa group involved in a deadly 2022 shooting.
The Normandale Park Shooting
On Feb. 19, 2022, a large group of armed Antifa militants occupied streets around the park for a direct action supporting Patrick Kimmons, a black gunman killed by PPB officers in 2018 after shooting two people. Kimmons’ mother organized regular armed occupations under the banner of “Justice for Patrick Kimmons.” In May 2021, a driver was beaten and robbed of his firearm by the group in broad daylight. They also smashed up his vehicle. The PPB never arrested anyone, even after I identified suspects from their own BOLOs.
At the 2022 Normandale Park occupation, armed militants from the group clashed with a neighborhood resident named Benjamin Smith, who was furious about the ongoing Antifa riots that had been occurring since 2020. Smith was a furry who lived near the park. He opened fire during the confrontation, killing Brandy Lynn Knightly and wounding four others. Knightly was a regular at the Antifa riots and used the aliases “June” and “T-Rex.”
Antifa gunman David Michael Bumpus shot the resident in response with a rifle. Online, Antifa scrambled to destroy uploaded video evidence and to call for others to destroy physical evidence from the scene. They also targeted me with death threats for reporting the facts about the occupation-turned-shooting, baselessly accusing me of “inspiring” the shooter.
The neighbor who shot the Antifa occupiers, Ben Smith, was sentenced to life in prison for killing Knightly and wounding her comrades.
Misinformation about the shooting stems mainly from Antifa member Dajah Beck, who fundraised $155,000 off the shooting, sued the city for alleged injury from a riot arrest and received a large cash settlement. She was one of the four injured in the shooting. Beck was convicted the same year as the shooting of two felonies over a violent Antifa attack in Tigard, Ore. She was arrested again at another illegal street direct action last year in downtown Portland but the case was dismissed.
Chief Day’s response to the Justice for Patrick Kimmons group? Nearly three years after the shooting, he issued a public apology to the armed Antifa group.
“I want to recognize the role the Portland Police Bureau played in exacerbating that pain,” he said.
The supposed “pain” was that the PPB initially described Smith as a “homeowner” rather than a renter in a press release. A trivial mistake became a propaganda weapon by Antifa and the left-wing press for a purpose that I still don’t understand to this day. They argued that it somehow showed the police were on the shooter’s side.
Day even praised the Antifa gunman who shot Smith and referred to the armed occupiers who terrorized neighbors as peaceful “traffic safety volunteers.” They had no legal authority to block traffic or to direct where drivers could or could not go.
Fast forward to late September 2025. At a press conference responding to the President’s decision to surge federal resources to Portland, Day downplayed the nightly Antifa violence outside the ICE facility, claiming it was confined to “one city block” and that PPB didn’t need federal help. This was a bold lie.
PPB hadn’t made a single arrest since June, even as nightly violence terrorized residents for months. Discovery evidence in a lawsuit by a nearby resident later showed that PPB officers were well aware Antifa had locked people inside the ICE facility and tried to burn it down — but the police argued, successfully, that they had no legal obligation to respond to that or to the loud noises amplified all night by the rioters.
And if it’s such a small area of no consequence, why hasn’t the PPB been able to police it?
On Aug. 3, Chelly Bouferrache, a local citizen journalist, was punched to the ground by an Antifa militant who was promptly assisted by a group of Antifa co-conspirators who ushered her to a car owned by John Hacker, a man who attacked me in 2019 and escaped justice. The PPB made no arrest.
Then on Sept. 20, Boufferrache was violently attacked again by an Antifa man who tried to rob her of her recording mobile device. He then doused her and my colleague Katie Daviscourt with bear mace. Both women went to the hospital for treatment. The PPB made no arrest.
On Sept. 30, Daviscourt was bashed in the eye with a heavy pole by a masked rioter outside the ICE facility following months of threats. She begged a nearby PPB officer to act. He refused to detain or arrest the fleeing suspect, who calmly disappeared into an Antifa safehouse at 677 South Lowell St., Unit #152.
The following day, the PPB released a BOLO about Katie’s attack: “PPB Needs Public’s Help Identifying Assault Suspect.” It was the same empty gesture they’ve repeated for years for me and other victims of Antifa violence.
The Oregonian reported that there was a stand-down order for the officers assigned to the area outside ICE the night Katie was assaulted.
On Oct. 2, conservative D.C.-based influencer Nick Sortor was arrested by the PPB after being violently confronted by far-left extremists outside ICE. The arrest has sparked mass condemnation from conservatives who feel it is the latest evidence point of the PPB being politically motivated in their actions and inaction.
Bob Day has had nearly two years to turn things around. He’s drawing double pay from a generous pension and a police chief's salary. Instead, he has enabled Antifa militants, apologized to armed extremists, gaslit the public, emphasized DEI in the police bureau and leads a department that refuses to protect citizens terrorized by Antifa.
Bob Day should resign.
Wowzer. I thought Seattle was a shithole with incompetent leadership! Portland though, comes from the back for the win!
The whole thing is one tragedy after relentless, exhausting, theatrical, pointless, dangerous, murderous stupid Leftist tragedy!