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After five days of total media silence, right-wing author Andy Ngo confirmed he was the man who some of Portland’s leftist marchers chased and beat until he took shelter in The Nines hotel May 28.
In a thread on Twitter and a statement released to WW, Ngo gave his account of the assault, which occurred when demonstrators recognized him in disguise at a rally on the one-year anniversary of this city’s George Floyd protest.
“I was chased, attacked and beaten by a masked mob, baying for my blood,” Ngo wrote. “Had I not been able to shelter wounded and bleeding inside a hotel while they beat the doors and windows like animals, there is no doubt in my mind I would not be here today.”
Ngo’s account lines up with much of what WW reported that night. Though Ngo’s identity was unconfirmed, approximately 10 people split off from the larger protest to follow Ngo and question him about his identity. They chased Ngo for blocks before tackling him and punching him several times after his head hit the brick sidewalk of Southwest Morrison Street.
After Ngo broke free from the people hitting him, he fled to the high-end hotel near Pioneer Courthouse Square, where his pursuers tried to wrest open the front doors and called for him to meet them outside. An image on his social media thread tonight shows bruises, cuts and a bloodied eye. He says he went to the hospital shortly after the attack.
Ngo closed his statement with an appeal to Portland’s police and other journalists for support.
“I call on the Portland Police and federal authorities to act on this before Antifa operatives hiding behind their masks succeed in murdering an American journalist on their watch. And I call on journalists and all those who believe in the First Amendment to join me in standing against the tyranny of those who use violence to terrorize, silence and suppress the truth.”
This is the second time in three years that protesters have attacked Ngo, whom they consider a threat to their safety because he regularly posts their mug shots and personal information to social media following their arrests. Ngo says he ventured back into the crowd while reporting a new chapter for his recent book, Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy. (Publishers often ask for follow-up chapters to bestsellers.)
Police arrested one person shortly after arriving at The Nines. But a probable cause affidavit shows that person’s arrest was unrelated to the attack on Ngo: The 26-year-old protester was arrested on suspicion of breaking a Starbucks window with a rock one month prior.
Though Portland police did close the intersection of Southwest Morrison Street and 6th Avenue, their perimeter appeared to be related to the arrest they made. They didn’t interfere with the people pursuing Ngo as they yelled at hotel staff.
Ngo tweeted his thread approximately 10 minutes before appearing on the Fox News talk show The Ingraham Angle. It was his first media appearance since the attack.