Proud Boy with long history of protest violence arraigned in Multnomah County

Nearly two months after being charged for his role in a violent Aug. 22 clash between Proud Boys and anti-fascists in Portland, Proud Boy Tusitala “Tiny” Toese, 25, was arraigned on Wednesday in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

An affidavit submitted by Deputy District Attorney Nathan Vasquez said Toese played a leading role in the Aug. 22 rally, which he helped organize and emcee.

“You want to keep on poking a sleeping bear, guess what? It’s going to rise up and it’s going to be 1776 up in this bitch,” the affidavit quotes Toese as saying at the event, where he also called trans people perverts and members of the Proud Boys referred to people charged for their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection as “political prisoners.”

Toese, a regular presence at violent protests in the Pacific Northwest, was charged in January with five counts of assault, including assault with a weapon, two counts of unlawful use of a weapon, two counts of riot and two counts of criminal mischief.

Until Tuesday evening when he was extradited, Toese was in custody in Washington state for unrelated charges of assault, obstructing law enforcement and criminal trespass.

During the Aug. 22 rally in Portland’s Parkrose neighborhood, Vasquez’s affidavit alleges Toese led an armed group of people through an alley in an attempt to flank counterprotesters. After the counterprotesters retreated, Toese and the other rally-goers pursued them into the parking lot of nearby Parkrose High School “still armed with paintball guns, bear spray, explosives and other blunt weapons,” according to the affidavit.

Vasquez wrote that Toese used a bat to break a truck window protesters were using to carry shields and water. He then incited “the other rally members to attack the truck and assault the driver.”

Another Proud Boy, Miles Furrow, 41, was photographed beating the truck occupant. Furrow was arraigned in January on six counts of assault, one count of unlawful use of a weapon and one count of riot. He pleaded not guilty and was released on bail in February.

Toese has faced over two dozen charges in Washington and Oregon since 2017, including nine assault charges. Two weeks after the Aug. 22 rally, Toese was shot in the foot during an anti-mask rally in Olympia, Washington, after he and other far-right demonstrators chased anti-fascist counterdemonstrators yelling at them to run and threatening them.

Based on his past criminal convictions, including a six-month sentence for attending a Portland rally in violation of his probation, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office has requested Toese be held without bail while he awaits trial.