This incident happened early Thursday morning at a lot where the Portland Police Bureau stores vehicles used for training new officers. Someone broke in and set 15 cars on fire before escaping.

When Portland police arrived at a department training facility to help with a fire on Thursday morning, they found at least 15 patrol vehicles burning.

The Portland Police Bureau is searching for a suspected arsonist who they believe set the cop cars on fire around 1:55 a.m. while the vehicles were parked in a fenced training area, the department said in a news release.

The PPB released several photos of the burned cars, including this one.

Press Release: Portland Police Training Vehicles Burned, Arson Investigation Underway (Photo)
Link: https://t.co/joAmmRRC1g pic.twitter.com/UwnIOcaUi3

— Portland Police (@PortlandPolice) May 2, 2024

The investigation is underway but the arsonist was caught on video so there's no question what happened here. The question that does remain is who is responsible. Everyone seems to know the answer even if they aren't saying it outright. Portland anarchists have had quite a week. Wednesday, just prior to the arson, a group walked through the city breaking windows.

Fireworks were set off, windows were broken and property was spray-painted by a group of suspects marching through downtown Portland Wednesday, according to Portland Police Bureau...

Police said among the businesses damaged include banks, coffee shops, cell phone and electronic stores, retail clothing and accessories shops and property belonging to Portland State University.

As mentioned, there was also a lot of damage done to the library at Portland State University. Are all of these things connected? There's no proof of that so far but what we can say is that the same sort of masked anarchists who smash windows and start fires also may have been involved at PSU. The police released a list of everyone they arrested yesterday when they cleared out the campus library and very few of these people strike me as the usual undergrads.

Ages of those arrested range from 18 to 60. The majority of arrests were for second-degree criminal trespass and included no other charges, while five included either assault or attempted assault on a public safety officer. Just two included second-degree burglary charges.

According to the latest information from PPB, "at least six" of the 30 people they arrested were PSU students. They did not say which individuals those were.

Most of these people weren't students, they were outside activists using the student protest as an excuse to fight with police. In other words, just the kind of people who would set police cars on fire. Of course the gimmick here is that Antifa has no membership lists so they will claim there was no organization behind this, just individuals using a "diversity of tactics." In some cases that may even be true. 

What binds them all together is their general anti-capitalist outlook, their hatred for the police and their willingness to break the law. So my guess is that people who identify with this group have a good idea who did what in each instance of vandalism and they are happy about all of it. They won't be sharing any information with the police of course. And that means, unfortunately, the chances of prosecution for all the damage to the businesses, the police cars and the library are slim. It's largely because they keep getting away with it that they keep doing it.