“HE’S AIMING HIS GUN!” rang out across the street corner as a group of eight protesters neared the man holding his camera in a white plastic cover.
Last night, Portland Police detained the 36-year-old blogger Michael Strickland known as “Laughing at Liberals” after the video blogger pulled his Glock 18 handgun with extended clip out of his pocket, and aimed it at two dozen protesters “scanning the horizontal plane” with the weapon.
Mike “Bluehair” Smith recorded the entire incident, and narrated events as they happened on the scene as helicopters hovered above the scene and military police arrested “Laughing at Liberals” and Jessie Spawnberg.
“Get BACK!” yelled Strickland, the blogger “Laughing at Liberals” to the small crowd that stopped marching on SW Main Street and 3rd Avenue near the “Thompson Elk” statute, “Get the HELL back!”
Strickland scanned the crowd and pointed the gun right to left across his visual plane, then rotating his body to the right and aiming the gun – held in both hands in the “Weaver stance” and threatening anyone who would come near him.
The crowd scattered, leaving one man within 10 feet of the armed photographer with his hands palms up facing the gunman, and as the weapon was aimed squarely at Mike “Bluehair” Smith from twenty feet away, he shouted, “Put the gun down!”
Seventeen seconds later, the man’s gun was back in his pocket.
“I know every body that played a major roll is calming this down,” Bluehair told PINAC News this morning, “This is a clear example of people calming things down and disarming a potential gunman without violence. We were lucky to have a hand full of guys in the right place and time to calm this down before shots were fired!”
“I played a small part.”
Smith risked his life to de-escalate the situation, and stepped between the armed blogger and the few foolhardier protesters that wanted to continue harassing him.
Laughing at Liberals was too scared to turn his back on the crowd, and Smith accompanied him awkwardly walking away, backwards.
He was followed by a small crowd of people recording the whole scene, as dozens of uninvolved spectators passed by too.
A few minutes later, the blogger was face down and being arrested by eight highly militarized Portland Police officers wearing full riot gear, along with Jessie Sponberg too.
“You can clearly see I have a camera,” Bluehair said as he continued to record the situation telling the Portland cops in an even voice, “Please don’t shoot me.”
“That guy is not with him. The guy that goes by Laughing at Liberals is by himself. Jessie Sponberg is not with him. He’s not with him.”
“Sponberg is not with him, ok, that’s what I thought,” said the bespectacled officer and turned to tell his fellow Portland police to let the innocent Sponberg go.
“There will be plenty of video of the entire thing online,” Bluehair shouted.
“Just making sure,” replied the officers.
“Sponberg was helping,” Smith said as one of the officers casually withdrew an extended nightstick next to an officer armed with an AR-15 style weapon, “helping keep the people away from him [Laughing at Liberals].”
“That’s what I thought,” replied the Portland officer, who held his hands out, palms up towards Mike Bluehair saying, “Alright, take a breath.”
“Dude! He just aimed a gun at me,” replied Mike “Bluehair” Smith, “I’m sorry, I’m a little amped up.”
A few minutes later, the Portland police officer wearing glasses waved towards Smith and asked him to step forward, which he did while recording – which the officers rightfully allowed him to do as he asked, “Are you the victim of a crime””
Mike “Bluehair” Smith believed at the time that Strickland, the blogger Laughing at Liberals hadn’t paused and aimed the firearm at him and declined to name himself as the victim of a crime to the officers saying that the blogger, “did not pause and hesitate on me.”
A few minutes later they released Jessie Sponberg from temporary detention.
Careful review of the video footage shows that the arrested blogger Strickland did in fact deliberately target Bluehair with the gun after he yelled to put the gun down, extending both arms in a pre-cursor towards firing.
It’s extremely fortunate that we are not reporting a tragic case of blogger on blogger bloodshed this morning.
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