Portland police officers and FBI agents are investigating a video that featured anarchists threatening Portland Mayor and Police Commissioner Ted Wheeler, authorities confirmed.
“PPB is aware of the video and has launched an investigation into the threats made against the Mayor,” a Portland Police Bureau (PPB) spokesman told The Epoch Times via email.
“The FBI is aware of the video and is assisting Portland Police Bureau in the investigation. Due to the on-going nature of the case, we have no further information to release at this time. Anyone with information as to the person or people responsible for this video are encouraged to contact the FBI or PPB,” an FBI spokeswoman added.
The video, posted on social media this week, showed a person in a mask standing in downtown Portland as a narrator spoke.
“We come to you as a small collective from within the anarchist and antifascist community,” the voice said. “We hope with his message to simply convey a few points commonly agreed upon within this community.”
“The mayor of this city is undeserving of his position. He has made it abundantly clear that windows to him are more important than human lives. We are not just challenging the idea of having Ted as a mayor. We are challenging the idea of having mayors at all. We want abolition. Abolition is absolute,” it added.
The anarchist also said that “window-smashing and riots are a necessary escalation” as it claimed that peaceful marches and voting have not brought about necessary change.
As the voice spoke, scenes were shown including the recent police shooting of a black teenager in Chicago, a bus pulling up in Portland behind the masked figure, and the figure standing in front of a wall with the names George Floyd and Breonna Taylor scrawled on it.