PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson held a rally with supporters in downtown Portland on Sunday.
KOIN 6 News was live at the rally. The following is a clip with Gibson, cut from the livestream. The full steam can be found on KOIN 6 News’ Facebook page.
A small crowd convened around 2 p.m. in Pioneer Square as it rained. After a group of Patriot Prayer members gathered in the square, counter protesters also arrived.
The demonstration remained largely peaceful with the exception of a drink being thrown.
On Saturday, Gibson posted a 17-minute video to Facebook calling for supporters to join him Sunday. The 35-year-old Vancouver resident is currently facing a felony riot charge for his alleged actions at a May Day brawl in Northeast Portland.
Gibson’s legal troubles
On August 27, 2019, Joey Gibson pleaded not guilty to a felony riot charge stemming from a May Day brawl at a Northeast Portland bar called Cider Riot. He was booked at the Multnomah County Detention Center on $5,000 bail, posted bail a few hours later and was released.
He told KOIN 6 News he believes the felony riot charge is politically motivated and an attempt by the city of Portland to ban him from the streets.
The maximum sentence for conviction on felony riot — a Class C felony — is 5 years in prison.
Gibson pushed a woman, taunted a number of people and physically threatened others in the May Day brawl outside Cider Riot, court documents obtained by KOIN 6 News revealed.
The affadavit from Deputy DA Brad Kalbaugh lays out a series of events from that day that were witnessed by a plain clothes officer and later by a detective looking at “numerous video clips” that were “readily obtainable on the internet via numerous sources.”
In the melee, a woman named Heather Clark was knocked unconscious. Before she was knocked out, Gibson is seen on video pushing her. That happened moments after Gibson and other Patriot Prayer members — some of whom also face charges — taunted and threatened Antifa members “in an effort to clearly provoke a physical altercation,” the court document states.
The owner of Cider Riot, Abram Goldman-Armstrong, filed a $1 million lawsuit against Patriot Prayer and Gibson over the brawl.
The lawsuit accuses them of negligence, trespass and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
According to the lawsuit, Ian Kramer hit Cider Riot patron Heather Clark and knocked her unconscious. The lawsuit also accuses Gibson of harassing and menacing patrons at the pub and facilitating a street fight between 2 people, which he live streamed.