RETRACTION, March 14, 2023: The Civil Liberties Defense Center is using the threat of legal action to censor the most fundamental civil right there is – free speech. The CLDC has demanded The Western Journal retract this article (see below our original correction of the article at the CLDC’s demand) or face legal consequences. This kind of bullying is particularly dangerous to The Western Journal because we are a small, family-owned, Christian company. We simply don’t have the resources to defend against cowards and bullies who weaponize the legal system. (However, you can help us fight back by subscribing to The Western Journal for less than $0.25 per day. The more subscribers we have, the harder we can fight for you without having to fear being canceled.)
So we are forced to issue this retraction, but before doing so, we thought you might like to know a little bit more about the Civil Liberties Defense Center. CLDC is a legal group with the self-described goal of helping “activists who, in the course of fighting for a better world, are arrested and criminally charged.” Notice, the word “wrongly” is missing. CLDC does not dedicate itself to defending the wrongly arrested and wrongly charged. Based on this wording, some might think CLDC isn’t trying to protect the innocent so much as it is trying to get the guilty set free.
Who are some of these “activists” the CLDC defends (or tries to get free)? Some are associated with the highly controversial, and often violent, far-left antifa organization. Antifa has been often associated with violent riots and intimidation, especially during the summer of 2020 when a slew of Black Lives Matter-inspired demonstrations devastated cities across the country.
The CLDC has defended “activists” such as Eric King, a Missouri man sentenced to ten years in prison for attempting to firebomb a U.S. Representative’s office in 2014.
The CLDC also defended controversial groups such as Black Unity et al. During a July 2020 “protest,” members of the “police abolition” group were arrested after reportedly injuring multiple officers while attempting to break through a police barricade meant to keep protesters clear of a nearby highway, according to KMTR.
Other defendants taken on by the group include a far-left environmental activist who admitted to vandalism and a “houseless activist” attempting to prevent police from clearing out dangerous tent cities from a public area. The aim of the former was to stop a pipeline that would make energy more affordable for everyday people, while the latter hoped to preserve illegal public homeless encampments that often double as open-air drug scenes according to one prominent expert.
It is unclear whether or not the suspect in The Western Journal’s story was associated with the CLDC, despite claims that he was. However, the group’s aims, highly partisan mission and past associations remain perfectly transparent.
In our opinion, the CLDC exists to return people to the street who could be extreme threats to law enforcement and potentially any everyday American who ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
CORRECTION, Feb. 21, 2023: An earlier version of this story referenced a report that the suspect, Christopher Luchini, was linked to the Civil Liberties Defense Center and also reported that the suspect was linked to antifa. While the suspect does appear to support leftist ideas (link here) and while CLDC appears to openly support the “anti-fascist” movement (links here, here and here), it is unknown whether Luchini and CLDC are linked. In a retraction demand sent to The Western Journal, CLDC denied the link, though an aspiring journalist covering a CLDC fundraiser appeared to have captured a photo of the suspect at the CLDC event. At this time, however, The Western Journal cannot confirm the authenticity of that photo. The article and its headline have been revised accordingly.
Police in Portland, Oregon, have arrested a man with reported links to antifa in connection with several assaults on women.
Christopher Luchini was arrested Tuesday at a grocery store where he works, according to a news release from Portland police.
Police said the arrest capped an investigation into at least four assaults on young women that took place between Jan. 12 and Feb. 7. Police believed all the attacks were conducted by the same person.
Three women were injured and required hospitalization, while the fourth escaped without injury.
Police said that a search warrant served on Luchini’s property turned up evidence connecting him with the attacks.
Luchini was charged with three counts of assault in the second degree, one count of attempted assault in the second degree and four counts of unlawful use of a weapon.
The suspect was being held at the Multnomah County Detention Center.
Police believe there could be more victims who did not report their attacks and are urging the public to contact them if they experienced an assault in the Central Eastside district of the city in the timeframe of the other attacks.
According to the Post Millennial’s Andy Ngo, Luchini has connections to the Civil Liberties Defense Center, a legal group that has supported antifa activists.
Radical #Portland leftist Christopher Luchini has been arrested for allegedly carrying out a series of bladed attacks in Portland involving at least 4 victims. 3 women were slashed up. He is connected to #Antifa legal group @CLDC. https://t.co/XMbgShoBy4 https://t.co/qzM7rnvR5u pic.twitter.com/KgK1EWJLNv
— Andy Ngô ?️? (@MrAndyNgo) February 15, 2023
The CLDC strongly disputed that, however.
“Civil Liberties Defense Center has no connection to this person,” Marianne Dugan, senior staff attorney for the group, said in a Monday email to The Western Journal seeking a retraction. “The information from Mr. Ngo is false and defamatory.
“The photo of the person in front of CLDC is not the arrested person (note the strategically cut off photo, not showing a face). The article with a photo of Mr. Luchini makes no connection between him and CLDC, and that article is from a high school newspaper. CLDC has no record of Mr. Luchini in our files, and there is no photo or information about him on our website.”
A victim who was identified only by her first name of Tu-Nhi told KGW that she was attacked on the night of Jan. 30 after a yoga class.
“He tapped me on the shoulder from behind. I think the knife was inside his sleeve, so he just kind of cut me down the shoulder,” she said.
She said she needed stitches to close the four- to five-inch gash she suffered.
“I’m pretty traumatized,” she said.
Multnomah County lists Luchini as a member of its youth commission.
“I believe we can make a positive difference in our community,” he said.
“My goal is to be on the sustainability committee to work on Transit Justice and Environmental Justice Issues.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
