An orange smoke-filled sky is seen above Estacada, Oregon, on September 9, 2020, as fires burn nearby. - Hundreds of homes including entire communities were razed by wildfires in the western United States on Septembe... MORE
By Kate Riga
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September 11, 2020
The FBI’s Portland field office was forced to debunk rampant conspiracy theories Friday that left-wing extremists had set the wildfires currently engulfing hundreds of thousands of acres in Oregon.
“FBI Portland and local law enforcement agencies have been receiving reports that extremists are responsible for setting wildfires in Oregon,” the office wrote on Twitter. “With our state and local partners, the FBI has investigated several such reports and found them to be untrue.”
“Conspiracy theories and misinformation take valuable resources away local fire and police agencies working around the clock to bring these fires under control,” it added. “Please help our entire community by only sharing validated information from official sources.”
Other local law enforcement apparatuses have also had to quash rumors about arsonists this week as thousands were evacuated under an eerie orange sky. The false theories seem largely to be originating from and spreading on social media platforms.
On Thursday, the sheriff’s office of Douglas County, located in the southwest part of the state, posted on Facebook to debunk a rumor that members of Antifa, an umbrella name for anti-fascist groups that has become a boogeyman to many on the right, had been arrested for setting fires.
“Rumors spread just like wildfire and now our 9-1-1 dispatchers and professional staff are being overrun with requests for information and inquiries on an UNTRUE rumor that 6 Antifa members have been arrested for setting fires in DOUGLAS COUNTY, OREGON,” the post read. “THIS IS NOT TRUE! Unfortunately, people are spreading this rumor and it is causing problems.”
About two hours south, police in Medford had to disown a Facebook post fashioned to look like it came from their department.
“This is a made up graphic and story,” the post said. “We did not arrest this person for arson, nor anyone affiliated with Antifa or ‘Proud Boys’ as we’ve heard throughout the day. Also, no confirmed gatherings of Antifa which has also been reported.”
It’s not the first time baseless rumors of invading extremists — a specter actively promulgated by Trump — have overwhelmed police departments. In towns across the country, inhabitants, terrified and incensed by social media posts, have flooded their law enforcement centers with warnings about impending doom. In a New Jersey suburb, Antifa extremists were supposedly coming for a shopping center. In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, they were coming by the “busload.” Rural Payette County, Idaho was convinced it was next on the list to be invaded.
In Forks, Washington, the Antifa mania grew to such a fever pitch that heavily-armed locals harassed a visiting family, ultimately trapping them at a campsite with felled trees. The bewildered family was rescued by golden-hearted teenagers with chainsaws.
The Trump administration eagerly fans the flames of Antifa hysteria, with the President frequently using the shadowy (and mostly fabricated) figures to redirect attention from the protests over police brutality and systemic racism that have intermittently broken out across the country since late May.
False Rumors About Antifa Starting West Coast Fires Follow Months-Long Conservative Hysteria
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September 11, 2020
The FBI’s Portland field office was forced to debunk rampant conspiracy theories Friday that left-wing extremists had set the wildfires currently engulfing hundreds of thousands of acres in Oregon.
“FBI Portland and local law enforcement agencies have been receiving reports that extremists are responsible for setting wildfires in Oregon,” the office wrote on Twitter. “With our state and local partners, the FBI has investigated several such reports and found them to be untrue.”
“Conspiracy theories and misinformation take valuable resources away local fire and police agencies working around the clock to bring these fires under control,” it added. “Please help our entire community by only sharing validated information from official sources.”
Other local law enforcement apparatuses have also had to quash rumors about arsonists this week as thousands were evacuated under an eerie orange sky. The false theories seem largely to be originating from and spreading on social media platforms.
On Thursday, the sheriff’s office of Douglas County, located in the southwest part of the state, posted on Facebook to debunk a rumor that members of Antifa, an umbrella name for anti-fascist groups that has become a boogeyman to many on the right, had been arrested for setting fires.
“Rumors spread just like wildfire and now our 9-1-1 dispatchers and professional staff are being overrun with requests for information and inquiries on an UNTRUE rumor that 6 Antifa members have been arrested for setting fires in DOUGLAS COUNTY, OREGON,” the post read. “THIS IS NOT TRUE! Unfortunately, people are spreading this rumor and it is causing problems.”
About two hours south, police in Medford had to disown a Facebook post fashioned to look like it came from their department.
“This is a made up graphic and story,” the post said. “We did not arrest this person for arson, nor anyone affiliated with Antifa or ‘Proud Boys’ as we’ve heard throughout the day. Also, no confirmed gatherings of Antifa which has also been reported.”
It’s not the first time baseless rumors of invading extremists — a specter actively promulgated by Trump — have overwhelmed police departments. In towns across the country, inhabitants, terrified and incensed by social media posts, have flooded their law enforcement centers with warnings about impending doom. In a New Jersey suburb, Antifa extremists were supposedly coming for a shopping center. In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, they were coming by the “busload.” Rural Payette County, Idaho was convinced it was next on the list to be invaded.
In Forks, Washington, the Antifa mania grew to such a fever pitch that heavily-armed locals harassed a visiting family, ultimately trapping them at a campsite with felled trees. The bewildered family was rescued by golden-hearted teenagers with chainsaws.
The Trump administration eagerly fans the flames of Antifa hysteria, with the President frequently using the shadowy (and mostly fabricated) figures to redirect attention from the protests over police brutality and systemic racism that have intermittently broken out across the country since late May.
False Rumors About Antifa Starting West Coast Fires Follow Months-Long Conservative Hysteria
ESTACADA, OR - SEPTEMBER 10: A sign warning of impending fire danger is posted on September 10, 2020 in Estacada, Oregon. Multiple wildfires grew by hundreds of thousands of acres Thursday, prompting large-scale evac... MORE
By Matt Shuham
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September 11, 2020
The deadly wildfires in California, Washington and Oregon have blanketed the West Coast in smoke and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. But on top of the chaos, locals — including first responders dealing with the crisis itself — are facing a wave of rumors about “antifa” purposefully starting fires.
It’s not clear where exactly the rumors began. But for months, armed right-wing groups have responded en masse, sometimes violently, to false reports of planned criminal activity by “antifa,” a shorthand for antifascist groups.
Some local officials are fed up.
“STOP. SPREADING. RUMORS.” read a Facebook post shared by the Douglas County, Oregon Sheriff’s Office.
“Remember when we said rumors make this already difficult incident even harder?” the office wrote. “Rumors spread just like wildfire and now our 9-1-1 dispatchers and professional staff are being overrun with requests for information and inquiries on an UNTRUE rumor that 6 Antifa members have been arrested for setting fires in DOUGLAS COUNTY, OREGON.”
|
September 11, 2020
The deadly wildfires in California, Washington and Oregon have blanketed the West Coast in smoke and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. But on top of the chaos, locals — including first responders dealing with the crisis itself — are facing a wave of rumors about “antifa” purposefully starting fires.
It’s not clear where exactly the rumors began. But for months, armed right-wing groups have responded en masse, sometimes violently, to false reports of planned criminal activity by “antifa,” a shorthand for antifascist groups.
Some local officials are fed up.
“STOP. SPREADING. RUMORS.” read a Facebook post shared by the Douglas County, Oregon Sheriff’s Office.
“Remember when we said rumors make this already difficult incident even harder?” the office wrote. “Rumors spread just like wildfire and now our 9-1-1 dispatchers and professional staff are being overrun with requests for information and inquiries on an UNTRUE rumor that 6 Antifa members have been arrested for setting fires in DOUGLAS COUNTY, OREGON.”
Remember when we said to follow official sources only. Remember when we said rumors make this already difficult incident even harder? Rumors spread just like wildfire and now our 9-1-1 dispatchers and professional staff are being overrun with requests for information and inquiries on an UNTRUE rumor that 6 Antifa members have been arrested for setting fires in DOUGLAS COUNTY, OREGON.
THIS IS NOT TRUE! Unfortunately, people are spreading this rumor and it is causing problems.
Do your part, STOP. SPREADING. RUMORS! Follow official sources of information such as local emergency response websites and pages, government websites and pages and local reputable news outlets.
Please, share far and wide!
Police in Molalla, about 45 min south of Portland, eventually edited a generic Facebook post about reporting “any suspicious activity” to clarify they were talking about possible looters, “not antifa or setting of fires.”
“There has been NO antifa in town as of this posting at 2:00 am,” they said early Thursday
EDIT/CLARIFICATION: This is about possible looters, not antifa or setting of fires. There has been NO antifa in town as of this posting at 02:00 am. Please, folks, stay calm and use common sense. Stay inside or leave the area.
To those of you still in and around town, please report any suspicious activity (strange people walking around/looking into cars and houses/vehicles driving through neighborhoods that don't belong there) to 911 immediately. Don't waste time posting it on FB, calling a friend or calling the non-emergency line. Call 911 immediately. The sooner we can get to the area the better chance of identifying the issue we have. A lot of rumors and posts are going around about looters. Please use caution and get us there ASAP. CALL 911.
A journalist who’d been checking out the area, Gabriel Trumbly, told BuzzFeed News that he and his partner Jennifer Paulsen were the subject of a fake antifa rumor cycle themselves in the area. A poster in a local Facebook group claimed to have “just witnessed a fire being started” and flagged the couple’s vehicle. Several people, commenting on the post, called for violence.
“This was kinda funny to me at first. However, after talking to Molalla PD, I was way too close to getting shot tonight,” Trumbly subsequently wrote on Twitter. “If my partner didn’t see one of the reposts, I was planning to go back a few hours later and film some more. Sounds like I would have been met by armed citizens.”
I am officially #AntifaTerrorist. Went out to Molalla, filmed some fires. Locals reported me to the police, and are looking for me to "shoot on sight." Within an hour of this post there were 180 comments, including a desire to "shoot on site" and to deputize locals. pic.twitter.com/UPrxBabPpp
— EverythingUndertheSun (@sun_everything) September 10, 2020
Snopes and Politifact identified a tweet from Turning Point USA’s Katie Daviscourt, which was shared thousands of times, that pointed to the police department’s original notice about “suspicious activity” and claimed “These fires are allegedly linked to Antifa and the Riots.”
Separately, Paul Romero, who lost Oregon’s Republican Senate primary this year to QAnon believer Jo Rae Perkins, wrote in a tweet shared more than ten thousand times that “Pallet Company in Oregon City confirmed Antifa arsonist on camera.”
Romero told the Associated Press that the fires could be pinned on an “army of arsonists” with fireworks, but offered no evidence. The only listed pallet company in Oregon City, Willamette Week later reported, “said they had experienced no fire or arson.”
To the north, Washington’s State Patrol and Department of Natural Resources were inundated with calls Thursday about the reports of antifa starting fires, The Spokesman-Review reported. While one man was arrested on suspicion of starting a fire on a highway, he made “no political statements” a patrol spokesperson told the paper. Accusations about the man’s affiliation with “antifa” appeared to stem from the 2014 arrest of a man with the same name at a protest in Washington. He faced charges related to weapons the police found in his backpack.
The AP tallied yet more rumors, one about a woman who purportedly tried to start a fire in Springfield, Oregon (she didn’t) and another about a reported shootout between a landowner and arsonists.
“So my brother is a logger as you all know,” a text message pictured in the false, viral Facebook post, began. It described the landowner discovering “a group of antifa throwing molotov cocktails on his property” and subsequently exchanging fire with the purported arsonists. Police told the AP that, contrary to the Facebook post’s claims, the described event never happened.
The rumors, in some cases, turned into armed confrontations.
“So we just got a few guns pulled on us,” journalist Alissa Azar tweeted, before posting a picture of the men who stopped her and other journalists with her, including Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Sergio Olmos.
These two militia guys just me and two other journalists to “get the fuck out of here” pic.twitter.com/9J3BySctHd
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) September 10, 2020
In recent months, armed right-wingers have taken rumors as grounds to stage shows of force at the scene of suspected antifa sightings, such as when a multiracial family going camping in Washington was trapped at their campsite after armed men felled trees all around them. (Local high school students eventually cleared the way with their own chainsaws.)
In Bethel, Ohio, motorcycle gangs counterprotesting a Black Lives Matter demonstration assaulted several demonstrators in front of local law enforcement.
In July, armed groups including far-right extremist flocked to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, after a hoax event organizer promised an antifa flag burning. Ultimately, armed men confronted a man at Gettysburg Cemetery in a Black Lives Matter t-shirt. But the man in question, seminarian Trent Somes, wasn’t lighting fires — he was visiting an ancestor’s grave, he told The Washington Post.
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