Old tweets by Portland councilman Mitch Green have resurfaced, including posts calling for the abolition of policing, urging the political left to riot and suggesting that far-right commentator Nick Fuentes should be struck with a framing hammer.
Green, who represents District 4 and was elected to the city council in 2024, is seeking re-election on an anti-war, Democratic Socialist platform. The posts were made before he deleted his Twitter account, now known as X.
In a post dated December 2020, Green wrote: “When I say ‘defund the police,’ what I really mean is abolish policing.” He added: “For me it’s shorthand for a step in that larger demand. I certainly do not mean reform police, because I actually want to do away with the institution altogether.”
Other posts from 2020 included the statements “All cops are bastards” and that police officers were “shit and absolute monsters” and the “f**king worst type of people”.
In July 2021, Green responded to a post about Mr Fuentes by writing: “This guy needs to get whipped in the head with a framing hammer.”
Green also wrote in December 2020: “I think the left should riot more. Legislators are not really concerned that people will notice when they actively impoverish people. That needs to change.”
In another post, from July 2020, he said: “You have a moral obligation to beat the piss out of anyone wearing Nazi masks anytime you see it happen.”
Green defends police abolition stance
Green said his online commentary largely followed the death of George Floyd, which prompted widespread calls to defund the police. He described the posts as an outlet for “frustration, outrage, and feelings of helplessness”.
“I want to acknowledge that those tweets are not a good look, especially for a sitting elected official. And that’s not how I engage in discourse today,” he said.
He said the remark about Mr Fuentes was “obviously meant as hyperbole”, while describing the commentator as a “holocaust denying, misogynist, homophobic neo-Nazi”. Green nevertheless reiterated his opposition to policing as an institution, saying: “That’s what I’m actively trying to build.”
On his call for more rioting, Green said: “Property destruction is a crime, but it’s not violence. Violence is when you hurt a person or an animal or you kill a person or an animal. And so I do draw that distinction.”
He said he “wouldn’t call for riots today”, but did not rule out doing so in future in relation to the federal government.
Green said he deleted his Twitter account after Elon Musk bought the platform for 44 billion dollars. He later acknowledged that the posts were authentic.
In a statement, Green said critics were attempting to label his 2020 tweets as “violence” despite “hundreds of actual incidents of physical violence resulting in bodily injuries to Portlanders”. He added: “The movement for Black Lives was not and is not about hatred. It is about a basic respect for human dignity, and a revulsion at the violence and callousness we have all witnessed too many times to count.”
Portland Police Chief Bob Day said he “no longer has confidence” in Green’s assessment of the police. He said the councilman’s position was particularly concerning because the council sets the Police Bureau’s budget, shapes its policy and votes on the tools and staffing available to officers.
“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,” Mr Day said.
Green said he did have an “agenda”, including demanding police accountability. He argued that officers should be judged on their conduct, just as he should be assessed on his current votes and actions rather than solely on the tweets he posted in 2020.
