A popular gathering place in Portland has hit a local white nationalist group with a $1 million lawsuit over continuing harassment, reports the Daily Beast.
According to the report, the owners of Portland bar Cider Riot has been continually targeted by Patriot Prayer -- an organization "whose members champion Islamophobic causes and violence against their opponents on the left."
"The bar is asking for a jury trial and $1 million from Patriot Prayer and its leaders, citing negligence, trespass, and intentional infliction of emotional distress," the report states, while focusing on its leader, Joe Gibson.
“Since its formation in 2016, the right-wing extremist group Defendant Patriot Prayer USA, LLC marked Portland as a target for violent intimidation,” claims the Cider Riot lawsuit, filed on Friday. “This intimidation serves to shutdown public democratic spaces through incitements of violence. Defendant Joseph Gibson then uses these self-initiated conflicts to fundraise.”
The tipping point that led to the lawsuit was a bloody altercation last May 1, outside the bar where members of Patriot Prayer battled with anti-fascist protesters.
"Approximately 20 Patriot Prayer members, many armed or wearing armor allegedly began harassing patrons. One Patriot Prayer member, Ian Kramer, 'used a baton to crack a Cider Riot patron on the head, knocking her unconscious. Upon information and belief, she suffered a serious vertebrae fracture," the lawsuit reads.
You can read more here.
