BY CORINNE BOYER
WHITE SUPREMACIST ACTIVITY IN EUGENE
Death threats and Oregon’s racist history
O
n Monday, May 8, the Eugene Police Department
issued a news release asking for the public’s help
in identifying a man who walked into the Eugene
Islamic Center and “threaten[ed] to kill attend-
ees.” The following day, EPD arrested Chad Ev-
erett Russell after a dispute was reported in Monroe Park.
Russell was arrested for “disorderly and bias related
crimes against two separate victims,” according to an EPD
statement. He was also the suspect police were searching
for in the Eugene Islamic Center incident, police said.
Hate and bias crimes in Eugene are on the rise this year,
according to data provided by Human Rights and Neigh-
borhood Involvement. Jennifer Lleras Van Der Haeghen
with the HRNI says the office has received 36 hate and
bias crime reports from Jan. 1 through May 31 compared
to 14 reports during the same period in 2016.
Local incidents mirror concerns that have arisen in Or-
egon about the state’s racist history, concerns that have
spiked in the wake of the May 26 Portland stabbings,
which killed two men and injured one. The alleged killer
was intimidating a young woman in a hijab and an African-
American teenager on a light rail commuter train.
“The targeting of and threat of violence at the Eugene
sentence of up to one year in prison. Russell will face a
six-person jury on June 22.
Although hate and bias crimes reporting has increased,
racism is not new to Oregon — radical racist laws are em-
bedded in the state’s history. In 1844, Oregon declared
slavery illegal, but passed the “Lash Law,” which “re-
quired that blacks in Oregon — be they free or slave — be
whipped twice a year ‘until he or she shall quit the terri-
tory,’” according to an Oregon Department of Education
document.
The law was repealed in the same year, and yet people
of color faced multiple unconstitutional laws from 1844
to 1959 that ranged from forbidding men of mixed races
from becoming citizens to making interracial marriage il-
legal and preventing people of color from voting. In 1959,
Oregon ratified the Fifteenth Amendment — that prohib-
ited denying men the right to vote based on race, which
was ratified to the U.S. Constitution in 1870.
Even today, “Negro Brown Canyon” is listed on Google
maps just northwest of Madras, despite the canyon’s being
named after John A. Brown, one of the state’s first black
homesteaders, according to Oregon nonprofit Oregon Hu-
manities.
on edge both in Eugene and Portland, and statewide to be
frank.”
The suspect in the Portland public transit stabbing
attacks participated in the right-wing “March for Free
Speech” in April, according to EW freelancer Mike Bivins,
who videoed the march.
In a statement released after the Portland stabbings,
Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Oregon Loren Can-
non said, “It’s too early to say whether last night’s violence
was an act of domestic terrorism or a federal hate crime.”
“To those community members affected by this vio-
lence — in particular, the families of the good Samaritan
heroes and our neighbors in the Muslim and African-
American communities — we stand with you. We won’t
allow these acts to go unanswered,” Cannon said.
President Trump continues to reiterate that foreign-born
terrorists are a constant threat. A Triangle Center on Ter-
rorism and Homeland Security report discredits the presi-
dent’s claims, stating that right-wing extremists commit
more terror attacks than foreign-born terrorists. The au-
thors found that “Islam-inspired terror attacks accounted
for 50 deaths since 9/11, but that ‘right-wing extremists
averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11,
‘To those community members affected by this violence — in particular,
the families of the good Samaritan heroes and our neighbors in the Muslim
and African-American communities — we stand with you.
We won’t allow these acts to go unanswered.’
— SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE OF THE FBI IN OREGON, LOREN CANNON
Islamic Center was unacceptable. Hate and bias have no
place in our community, and we will act in solidarity with
our Muslim neighbors and any community targeted by hate
and bias,” Van Der Haeghen says.
EPD Sergeant Scott Vinje says Eugene has seen an in-
crease in white supremacist activity.
Beth Ann Steel with the FBI’s Portland office said in
an email to EW: “The FBI takes allegations of hate crimes
very seriously, and we are continually working with local
partners and concerned community members to ensure that
everyone feels that they can worship safely and without
fear. In this particular instance, we are working with the
Eugene Police Department, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and
the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division to deter-
mine whether federal charges are an option moving for-
ward.”
Video footage sent to EW shows a man alleged to be
Chad Russell being aggressive towards people in the park.
“They’re not going to come, dude,” Russell says in the vid-
eo after being told police were being called. “They don’t
give a fuck about you,” he says.
“You’re going to get your ass kicked out of my coun-
try,” Russell continues and then slaps a witness’s hand.
Court documents filed in Lane County list three counts
of intimidation in the second degree and menacing. A Class
A misdemeanor carries a maximum fine of $6,250 and a
8
June 8, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
EPD Sergeant Scott Vinje says Eugene has “some white
supremacy groups.” American Front, a white supremacy
group, is active in Eugene, according to Vinje. Classified
as a racist skinhead group by the Southern Poverty Law
Center, the group dates back to the 1980s, making it “one
of the oldest continuously existing racist skinhead groups
in the United States,” according to the Anti-Defamation
League’s website.
Vinje says there have been racist posters around cam-
pus and graffiti in the Whiteaker area, “including some
swastikas.”
He adds, “Some of the swastikas, some of the things
that have happened we have investigated them as hate
crimes. Some of them we have not. If we don’t know who
graffiti[ed] the swastika we don’t necessarily know what
their intent was with it.”
Zakir Khan, with the Council on American-Islamic Re-
lations (CAIR), first spoke to Eugene Weekly after threats
were made at the Eugene Islamic Center. He says the nar-
rative that arises after white men threaten communities of
color is deeply frustrating and often focuses on the men-
tal health of the perpetrator. He adds, the label terrorist is
quickly used if a person of color is suspected of commit-
ting a violent act.
After the Portland stabbings, Khan says, “the commu-
nity is really suffering right now. Communities are really
causing a total of 254 fatalities.’”
In fact, Americans are more likely to die from heart dis-
ease (1 in 7), murder (1 in 249), assault by gun (1 in 358)
or by police (1 in 8,359) than from foreign-born terrorist
(1 in 45,808), according to data from the National Council
on Safety.
Vinje says people should call EPD and be willing to
walk away from a verbal incident that could escalate. He
says he encourages anyone who feels like they have been
the victim of a bias crime to report it to EPD. He says he
would “encourage everybody if they feel like they have
been victimized bias-wise don’t be afraid to make a re-
port.”
Vinje adds, “There has been an increase in white su-
premacy type activity [with] the swastikas and that kind of
thing. I don’t know everything that’s causing it.” He says,
“I have asked for all of our patrol officers to, anytime you
see this stuff, please take a report, do a good investigation,
get it to me, we are tracking it.”
Khan says, “Any time a hate crime happens, it should
have a response. It shouldn’t take people losing their lives,”
after being asked about the stabbing in Portland.
“I understand Eugene is smaller community but it
doesn’t mean they don’t matter. I hear from community
members that they are afraid to go to the mosque. That
should concern everyone in the state.”