A video showing a man launching into an expletive-filled rant at a Portland demonstration has ignited an online firestorm, not only for its viciousness but also for the politics involved: The man is wearing a sweatshirt with an anarchist label and the target of his invective is wearing a flag symbol and claims she's a 9/11 widow.
Conservative news sites, activist groups and social media users have all pounced on the video, hailing it as the latest example of thuggish behavior by leftist protesters.
Clips of the video taken Saturday night have now been viewed millions of times, often framed to leverage outrage that a foul-mouthed antifascist would excoriate a woman who lost a spouse in a national tragedy.
The Oregonian/OregonLive has been able to identify the woman, but not the man. He's wearing a black hoodie emblazoned with the logo for AK Press, a book publisher that specializes in anarchist and radical literature.
The woman didn't respond to multiple phone calls and Facebook messages Thursday seeking comment. New York police and others associated with 9/11 can't confirm she was married to a 9/11 victim.
The episode occurred at the end of a Patriot Prayer march for "law and order" in downtown Portland that spiraled into a violent brawl between the right-wing group and its antifascist, or antifa, adversaries.
Later that evening, a man erupted at a woman standing near the corner of Southwest Morrison Street and Broadway.
"Why are you trying to block me?" says the man, adding an expletive.
"Because I obey traffic signals," responds the woman calmly. She's wearing a T-shirt with an American flag and an NYPD baseball cap.
The man calls her "snarky" and an "idiot" and tells her to shut up amid another string of expletives.
The woman shoots back a provocative response but is still smiling.
"I'm not, I'm not going to punch you, I'm not like your husband, I'm not going to punch you," the man replies.
"I'm not married," answers the woman.
"I'm not like your boyfriend or your cop boyfriend who is going ... knock you out, so don't worry," the man says.
The woman then turns around and points at her NYPD baseball cap.
"My husband died on 9/11," she says.
"Good for him," says the man, who then rails against New York City cops. "Your husband, should probably ... rot in the grave."
Zeroing in on the woman's NYPD ballcap, some of the most shared posts and tweets of the video declare that her husband was a New York police officer, of which there were 23 killed in the attack.
That's unlikely, officials with several New York City police unions said.
"I've met all the widows who lost a husband that day," said Bob Mladinich, a spokesman for the Sergeants Benevolent Association, an NYPD police union. "She's definitely not one of them."
Mladinich, a retired NYPD detective, conceded that it remained possible that the woman's husband was a Port Authority police officer, a firefighter, or one of the nearly 2,000 other men believed killed in the attack.
Though that might not be the case either.
Public records list a history of only West Coast addresses for the woman, who currently lives in Vancouver.
Though records list her as having several last names over the years, only one matches those of three men killed on 9/11, according to a registry of victims maintained by the National September 11 Memorial.
But her name does not match the names of their spouses or partners when they died, news and public record searches show.
Her prolific posts on Facebook also make no mention of a husband killed on 9/11, even on this year's anniversary. On that day, the woman posted a news story about antifa, shared a video that lambasted universal health care and included a commemorative message from President Donald Trump.
To some, like Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson, it matters little whether the woman is an actual 9/11 widow but how she was treated in public.
"At the end of the day," Gibson said, "this guy had no sense of empathy toward a woman on the street. He just kept going at her. It's disgusting."
-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh
skavanaugh@oregonian.com
503-294-7632 || @shanedkavanaugh