This morning police released a photo along with a name of the suspect in the vicious beating of a driver which took place Sunday night. Police have asked Marquise Love to turn himself in but so far haven’t heard from him.

Yesterday, the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) began investigation of an assault that occurred in the downtown area where an adult male associated to a white pick-up truck was violently assaulted. Investigators positively identified the suspect as 25 year-old Marquise Love. Investigators made attempts to contact Love but could not locate him.

Investigators have left messages for Love to turn himself in but will continue to look for him as there is probable cause for his arrest…

PPB understands the high public interest in cases such as these. The release of information may not be as timely as the public would like. Social media platforms make it quick to circulate information but investigators often need to make other connections not seen in videos. Investigators need to protect the integrity of the cases they are assigned in order to present the best case to prosecutors and sometimes an early release of unverified information can hinder that process.

The reason for that last paragraph above is that Love’s name and information were widely circulating online yesterday so to many people it appears police are way behind the curve. But not everything posted online about this case has been accurate. Another rumor I saw floating around yesterday was that the victim of the assault had died. Today police made clear that was not the case. In fact, he has been released from the hospital.

Other reports around social media claim that the victim in this case is not recovering or has succumbed to the injuries. These reports are false. The victim has been released from the hospital and is recovering.

That’s good news. Meanwhile, leaders of a Portland BLM group is attempting to distance itself from the violence, calling what happened “a stain on the movement.”

Two people were physically assaulted last night near a protest against police brutality in downtown Portland, with at least one sent to the hospital for his injuries. These incidents, all caught on video, were perpetrated by a small group of people who regularly frequent the nightly demonstrations. But longtime organizers with Portland’s protests against racist policing say these individuals are not associated with the main movement—and believe their violence is tarnishing the message of Black Lives Matter.

“We want the public to know that we’re not those folks beating people up and robbing them,” said Danialle James, a community organizer with the group Moms United for Black Lives. “It’s a stain on the moment.”

James has been protesting the death of George Floyd in Portland since May 27, and co-founded Moms United with fellow protester Demetria Hester in late July.

It is a stain on the movement. They are right about that. But it’s far from the first one.

Two additional points about this. First of all, for a group run by Demetria Hester to cry crocodile tears about the reputation of the movement is laughable. Here’s the kind of behavior Hester finds acceptable: Taunting police officers by telling them their wives are at home cheating on them as one of her comrades waves a dildo at police. She’s a class act:

I should probably throw a warning up on this, but if you couldn't see what they were holding… here it is. Demetria Hester telling troopers that their wives are cheating on them "with something of that size." Now she's back to telling them that their moms/families/kids hate them pic.twitter.com/etngjhhT1H

— Hannah Ray Lambert (@TheHannahRay) August 11, 2020

Second point, according to Drew Hernandez, one of the people who shot the footage of what happened Sunday night, the people involved in the assault came directly from the main protest which had explicitly encouraged violence. Marquise Love was part of a small group escorting someone away from the main protest because that person was filming. The group assaulted that man and then, when a a trans-woman tried to intervene, they turned the assault on her. Finally, they turned on the truck driver when he tried to intervene to protect the trans-woman who was being beaten and robbed. This was a string of assaults that started with people at the protest. But you don’t even need to know all of that because this group was repeatedly talking about Black Lives Matter during the assault.

Bottom line, the idea that these people weren’t part of the movement is a huge stretch. Here’s a photo of Marquise Love which likely came from his Facebook page before it was locked down. He seems pretty serious about his commitment to BLM to me.

Here’s Drew Hernandez recounting the entire story of what happened leading up to the kick to the face of the truck driver (allegedly) by Marquise Love. This matches pretty well with the description I pieced together yesterday based on the video clips. Finally, Hernandez announced a short time ago that he would be on Tucker Carlson’s show tonight. I’ll try to add that video later if it’s available.