Portland shooting: Suspect who ranted about ‘commies’ identified after activist shot dead at Amir Locke demo

‘It’s a real slap in the face that this happened’

The alleged shooter who killed one woman and injured five others in Portland at the weekend has been identified by police as Benjamin Jeffrey Smith.

The Portland Police Bureau named the 43-year-old on Tuesday as the main suspect in a shooting on Saturday, in which an activist and campaigner was fatally shot and five others injured.

A roommate of Mr Smith’s who spoke with Oregon Public Broadcasting earlier revealed that he was arrested shortly after midnight on Sunday by the Portland Police Bureau and FBI, who came with an arrest warrant to their apartment.

“He talked about wanting to go shoot commies and antifa all the friggin time,” said Kristine Christenson. “He was just a sad angry dude”

It comes after police said a woman was killed and five others injured following a “confrontation between an armed homeowner and armed protesters” in Portland’s Normandale Park neighbourhood on Saturday.

The victims were among a crowd who were protesting over the police shooting of Amir Locke, a Black man, in Minneapolis ealier this month.

“He talked about wanting to do this for a while,” added Ms Chrsitenson. “He was angry at the mask mandates, he was angry at the damned liberals.”

Although police have not formally identnited Mr Smith as the suspect in Saturday’s shooting – friends and family of the shooting victim have done so.

June Knightly, a beloved LGBT+ campaigner, was allegedly killed during the “confrontation between an armed homeowner and armed protesters” and was among a small group who were working on crowd control, according to reports.

June Knightly, 60, has been identified by family and friends as the victim of the shooting (June Knightly / Facebook)

Police have described the scene on Saturday as “extremely chaotic, and a number of witnesses were uncooperative” or left the scene “without talking to police”. The bureau said it believes “a large number of people either witnessed what happened, or recorded the incident as it unfolded”.

On Twitter, an account of Saturday’s protest appeared to suggest a homeowner confronted the group of “unarmed traffic safety volunteers who weren’t with any protesters”.

“Four women trying to de-escalate & he unloaded a 45 into us because he didn’t like being asked to leave and stop calling us terrorist c***s,” said the Twitter user, SSDGK. The account remains confirmed.

Knightly leaves belong a wife and adult son, according to KGW News.

“She just had that demeanour about her to keep everyone calm and keep everyone safe,” a friend, Nacie Runyan, told the news station. “She was just this bright light of a motherly figure as well and that’s why everybody warmed up to her almost immediately, because of what she did for everybody else.”

Police at the scene of the shooting in Normandale Park in Portland, Oregon (REUTERS)

Belinda Carroll, another friend, said: “She described herself as a pacifist more than once, so that was where she lived; de-escalation and making sure people were talking to each other in a calm way.”

“It’s a real slap in the face that this happened. I think everyone’s going to be sad for a long time.”

Protests and shootings have plagued the Oregon city following the police killing of a Black man, Amir Locke, in Minneapolis two weeks ago, with police being called out to six shootings within a nine-hour span between Thursday night and early Friday.

Another shooting also followed the Normandale Park confrontation, according to the Portland Police Bureau.