PORTLAND PROTESTS: LIVE UPDATES

Updated at 6:12 p.m.

Joey Gibson, leader of Vancouver-based right-wing group Patriot Prayer, turned himself in to the downtown Portland jail Friday in connection with charges linked to a May Day melee outside a Portland bar.

Before entering the Multnomah County Detention Center, Gibson held a news conference outside the jail drawing about two dozen people. Wearing a hat with a label that read “what goes around comes around” and a t-shirt with Bible verse “John 3:16”, Gibson told spectators that he believed he was being unfairly targeted and he was innocent of engaging in or inciting any violence on May 1 outside of Cider Riot.

“I stood on a sidewalk and was assaulted numerous times,” Gibson, 35, said. “This is without a doubt an attack on the First Amendment.”

He also urged people to attend Saturday demonstrations in downtown Portland, to not engage in violence, and if they’re arrested, to do so while in the midst of peaceful protest.

Gibson said he was on the fence on whether to attend before learning of his riot charge Thursday. He was being held in jail on $5,000 bail and released after posting bail at 3:50 p.m., jail staff said.

He is scheduled to be arraigned in court Monday.

Gibson is one of five men booked into jail since Tuesday linked to fights, attacks and people being doused in chemical spray between right- and left-wing supporters outside Cider Riot. All five men — Gibson, Matthew D. Cooper, 24; Russell E. Schultz, 50; Mackenzie Lewis, 29; and Christopher R. Ponte, 37 -- have been accused of riot. Ponte is also accused of third-degree assault.

Portland police said detectives are still investigating incidents from May 1 and June 29 and that no particular group is being targeted.

All but Schultz has been named as defendants in a $1 million lawsuit filed by the bar’s owner. Abram Goldman-Armstrong claims Gibson and other right-wing protesters showed up to his business during a post-May Day celebration, fought with customers and injured at least one person.

Gibson’s attorney, James Buchal, told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Thursday that none of the videos showing people fighting and deploying pepper spray outside the bar shows Gibson being violent.

Gibson provided his account of the May Day incident in a court declaration filed last month in connection with the lawsuit. He said it would be “fair to call my conduct confrontational, and certainly annoying to members of Antifa,” but he denied being the cause of any violence.

Gibson said he filmed the crowd with his phone, was pushed, spat on, wiped the spit on someone who he thought was the perpetrator, yelled at people on the sidewalk, was hit with pepper spray “until my faced turned red,” and kept other spectators out of a fight between two people.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 | @EvertonBailey

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