A protester accused of violence outside Portland, Oregon’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility is a sex offender with a record of illegally failing to report as one, documents show.
Thirty-nine year-old Andrew Simmons was charged with harassment and disorderly conduct on Friday and released on bond within 24 hours after allegedly pushing a bike officer during a demonstration, according to a Portland Police Bureau (PPB) statement and jail records. Simmons was also convicted in 2014 and 2020 of failing to report as a sex offender in Oregon, and the state dropped two more counts of the same charge against him in 2023, court documents first reported by journalist Andy Ngo show.
Records do not yet list an attorney for Simmons’ current case. It is unclear where and when his original sex offense occurred.
Simmons’ arrest marks another of several Portland protest defendants over the past year who had prior criminal histories and were swiftly released by liberal Multnomah County. Transgender rioter Julie Winters was given a “time served” sentence in December after swinging and throwing a butcher knife around federal officers during a Portland anti-ICE protest, the latest of several cases on Winters’ record, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.
Police have made at least 79 arrests related to anti-ICE protests in Portland that began after President Donald Trump returned to office, the PPB said Friday. Simmons’ was the only arrest the bureau reported for Friday.
Video footage from Friday night showed dozens gathered in a crowd, some wearing black clothing or gas masks. Police in yellow uniforms were seen surrounding and restraining an unidentified person on the ground after an off-camera altercation as other protesters surrounded them, blowing whistles.
“Do you guys really want to do this? Do you guys really want to do this?” someone shouted in the video.
Police arrested another protester the following day on a harassment charge, though she was released that night, and another who is still in custody on unlawful use of a weapon and coercion counts, jail records show. Both arrests were based on warrants from before the protest, the PPB said.
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