Proud Boys Tusitala "Tiny" Toese (left) and Alan Swinney (right) during pro-Trump and pro-police demonstrations in downtown Portland. Despite violence in the streets, police were notably absent and never declared an unlawful assembly.
Jonathan Levinson / Jonathan Levinson
A Multnomah County judge has issued a new warrant for Tusitala “Tiny” Toese, a member of the self-described “western chauvinist” group Proud Boys, which has engaged in violence at protests.
The warrant updates a previous warrant to allow Toese, who lives in Washington, to be extradited to Oregon following any arrest. It follows a weekend where the Proud Boys and other groups on the political far right openly brawled in downtown Portland with counterprotesters aligned with Antifa and Black Lives Matter movements.
Toese is wanted for violating the terms of his probation on multiple occasions this summer.
Court records show Toese was documented in Seattle where he was seen on video shoving a man outside the former Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Other records show him staying at different homes nightly also in violation of probation.
Over the weekend, Toese attended a violent protest in downtown Portland. Despite being clearly visible and having a previous warrant, Portland Police did not arrest him — even as Toese walked by police.
During a news conference Monday, Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell was asked why officers didn’t arrest Toese.
“I think it’s difficult to assume that every officer knows who everyone in the crowd is, or that that person has a warrant,” Lovell said. “But to put a small number of officers into a crowd of several hundred people where there’s a threat potentially on each side, is very difficult to weigh the risk versus reward on that.”
Toese is on probation stemming from a 2018 misdemeanor assault charge that left the victim with stitches and a concussion.
