When an Oregon county near Portland held self-proclaimed “journalist” Alissa Azar accountable for planning a riot in 2021, violent members of Antifa descended on a small main street. Police arrested one member for allegedly assaulting a man.
“She just wasn’t even just your average Antifa member. She was somebody who definitely was an orchestrator, or I would call a ringleader,” Clackamas County Commissioner Ben West said to The Federalist. “They operate with creating fear, and at a certain point, you just have to stand up and be like, ‘No.’”
A Clackamas County jury found Azar guilty of a felony riot charge and a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge, but was hung on her misdemeanor charge for use of “ESG [electrical stun gun]/Tear Gas/Mace,” according to The Post Millennial. Prosecutors alleged Azar helped organize a 2021 Antifa riot in Oregon City, a small, usually safe community.
Azar, who calls herself a “journalist,” retained lawyer Lauren Regan, director of the radical Civil Liberties Defense Center, which has defended Antifa in court.
John Hacker, a well-known Antifa member who allegedly helped attack journalist Andy Ngo in 2021, assaulted a man outside the courthouse after the verdict, according to West. West said a constituent stopped to shake his hand, and Hacker became violent.
“Hacker comes out of nowhere, yelling and screaming,” West said. “These two gentlemen started yelling at each other and engaging, and it escalated and escalated, and I turned around from right across the street and watched John Hacker just throw an absolute haymaker
