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Over the weekend, conservative pundit Max Steele published a Substack article that surfaced dozens of inflammatory tweets that Portland City Councilor Mitch Green wrote from before he was elected to the City Council in 2024.
The majority of the tweets were posted during 2020 and 2021. Green was elected to the council in November 2024 and took office in 2025.
The tweets, which Green deleted when he ran for office but which were archived online, included a remark that he hated Portland police and a post seeming to mock small business owners who had requested graffiti abatement services during the racial justice protests of 2020, some of which turned into riots that did considerable damage to storefronts. In one tweet dated Aug. 8, 2020, Green wrote: “No, police are shit and absolute monsters. Just the fucking worst type of people.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Portland Police Chief Bob Day released a statement saying he had lost faith in Green’s ability to “reasonably and objectively” evaluate the police bureau as part of his council duties.
“What concerns me is that this Councilor sits on an elected body that sets the Police Bureau’s budget, shapes its policy, and votes on the tools and staffing our personnel rely on to do the jobs safely,” Day wrote. “That profound responsibility requires a baseline of good faith: that the Bureau’s work will be judged on its merits rather than beginning with the predetermined conclusion that law enforcement should be dismantled. That is why I have a responsibility to say that I no longer have confidence that this Councilor is evaluating the Police Bureau reasonably and objectively.”
Green did not immediately respond to a request for comment, telling a WW reporter that staff were handling inquiries related to the tweets. He previously told The Oregonian that his tweets were “not a good look, especially for a sitting elected official. And that’s not how I engage in discourse today.”
Green, who is currently running for re-election, has had a difficult summer and fall. He forgot to pay a property tax bill of $7,328, The Oregonian reported this summer. And records exclusively obtained by WW in August revealed that he had lit a brush fire in the backyard of his Southwest Portland home despite layers of state, county and city burn bans in place due to high temperatures and an increased risk of wildfire.
Green said he had been unaware of the burn bans.
